There is nothing on earth more nauseating than having to listen to a couple cooing at each other, hearing their faux-infantile babbling, catching a glimpse of their pouting and doe-eyed posing.
That having been said, my husband and I have our own “code” of baby-talk. It involves certain facial expressions and gestures imitative of a toddler’s wheedling and tantrums, pronouncing r’s as l’s (and sometimes vice versa), and
restricting ourselves to two-word sentences.
I’d no more do this in front of other people than stick my tongue down his throat and grope his crotch in public, but in private we do it, and we, uh, enjoy it.
Even as I indulge in it, I’m confused by this behavior. 'Cause, see, I hate kids. I find nothing charming in a lisp. Get that brat to a speech therapist. “Kids say the darndest things,” do they? They say ignorant and annoying things. Now, don’t jump all over me. I’m not implying that there’s anything wrong with your children. I’m just trying to explain that I do not think they are cute, I do not like spending time with them, and I do not want any.
So why, in order to reinforce a feeling of closeness and intimacy with my husband, do I act like one? And, fess up, do you do it?
No, thank god. We don’t even talk baby talk with our BABY. (Well, she’s 3 1/2 now, but we didn’t even when she WAS a baby.)
We DO have a lot of code phrases and catchphrases and bits of old jokes and reminiscences (who doesn’t?), but I don’t think you could classify any of them as “baby talk”.
Guilty.
We babytalk to each other when we’re alone - only our nicknames for each other have slipped through the net, which is why I’m called cazzle (or tazzy), and people know who I’m referring to when I say Manny. The rest of it is a mixture of in-jokes and babytalk too embarrassing to discuss on a public forum, let alone in front of people.
My friends are appalled by the whole Cazzle/Manny thing… I shudder to think what’s they say if they could hear us when we’re alone!!
I’d smack him if he started it! I just hate that. We have friends who do that. Adult, otherwise intelligent people who coo in those higher than normal voices when they talk to each other and use thise names like snookums and sweetums and honey bear. :: shudder ::
I never talked to my kids like that and snapped at other people when they tried it.
Don’t even get me started on people who talk to their pets that way.
Wah! Arden Ranger, you’re either a woman, or gay!?! The Julian I know would not approve of either. ; ) Sorry 'bout the hijack, but my mental image of you just went pop.
I’m guilty of talking baby-talk to the cat, too. I’d never do it with a kid, though. The cat isn’t trying to learn how to speak. (At least, I hope not.)
Baby talk seems to help babies actually learn to talk, with the over-emphasis on the pitch variations to make it more obvious. It’s kind of like the auditory equivalent to cartoons- it makes speech more exciting (therefore more likely to be paid attention to) by exaggeration. Many people seem to be hard-wired to do this to babies, and sometimes it generalizes over to other relationships. It’s a warm, squooshy nurturing thing, so there’s not really anything wrong with it, other than the nausea it can indude in some people. It will actually get the attention of cats (and probably dogs too) since higher-pitched voices sound closer to cat voices.
Having said this, my code-talk to hubby consists of things like obscure Simpsons references. I usually only do the baby-talk thing when I’m trying to gross him out, or I notice I’m doing something overly-maternal (I’m 8 years his senior, but I’m also sans kids and not planning to have any) so I’ll do it by way of pointing it out and laughing at myself.
I confess I do babble to my cats. They actually listen when I do, but I haven’t gotten them to clean their litter box yet. Shrug; they have walnut-sized brains, what can you expect.
Okay, I admit it…in private, the Sunshines are disgustingly cute. We do have our own language, which includes a lot of Simpsons refrences, unintelligible noises, cuddles and kisses. Yes, we even have nicknames for each other which are interchangable. Snooky and Pooky.
You can stop throwing up now. We don’t do anything like this in public except hold hands. And the occassional nickname might slip out. Otherwise, we’re normal adults!
Really! We are.
We talk a bit funny to each other, but it isn’t exactly baby talk as such - no high pitched voices, no fwuffy bunny names. I admit, if anyone else cought us doing it, they would probably be nauseated. That’s why it stays in private, along with the silly dances.
I speak French to cats. Bonsoir, le chat. Que vas-tu faire ce soir?
Hmm, not so much baby talk as a wierd Mr. And Mrs. Jarbaby language that ocassionally seeps out into real life and makes us look stupid.
For example, the nicknames we have for each other. I call him Boy and he calls me Girl or Donkey, but when I yell “BOY” across Marshall Fields, it gets looks, and when we’re at a bar and he says “what’re ya drinkin’ Donkey?” people are confused.
Also, based on an old family story, we say “What you said?” instead of “What did you say?” and I actually said that to my boss last Friday.
And, Sunshine, we also speak in Simpson-ese more than normal humans should. I say “Done…AND DONE!” or “Not once, not twice, but THRICE!” way too often.
As for the dog (Marge), we speak to her and treat her as if she were a twenty or twenty one year old person. We admonish her to get a job, to quit laying around all day, to get her drivers license and lose the belly. I sometimes think she’s rolling her eyes at us…but maybe that’s just me
Baby talk? Nah, it’s more like 3-year-old-demanding talk.
It’s the insistent “BABY ME!” or “KISS ME!” or “HUG ME!” or “LOVE ME!” or “WARM ME!”[sub]for when one person gets in bed very cold and the other is very warm[/sub] Tonal emphasis is on the demanding verb, strong in the middle (wARm ME!) and on the “me”. It’s also only when we are completely alone…and usually drunk or apologetic…
We talk baby talk to the Chinchilla. She gets treated like a newborn that nobody can stop staring and cooing at. It’s truly pathetic.
My beloved husband has a slight speech impediment so he plays it off in public by baby talking to me. I don’t do it as much because I worry about him thinking I am making fun of him. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt his feelings. We also have what I refer to as married talk, we talk in phrases only the other really understands. Just a stupid phrase uttered by him can set me off in giggles for hours. I am guilty of mimicing the way my kids pronounce things though. Like my son calls his underwear hunderfear so I call them hunderfear now too.
“Hello Shmoopie.”
“I’m not Shmoopie, YOU’RE Shmoopie.”
“Nuh-uh, YOU”
“Awwww, I love you Shmoopie!”
Even though this conversation was from Seinfeld, watching that episode (aside from the Soup Nazi) makes me feel sick, but it remains as one of my favorite episodes.
I talk in the baby talk sometimes to a very good friend of mine (it is a girl, so no worries ;)), and sometime I irritate myself. I gotta work on that…
