# First words **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 16, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376 "2007-05-16T22:21:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sofaspud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@Sofaspud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofaspud)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/21 "2007-05-17T14:21:45Z")
My first word was… well, not polite. Earned my grandfather a nasty glare from both my mom and my grandma, they say. He was rebuilding the carbeurator, I guess, and the pliers slipped. Let’s just say it rhymes with “duck”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![rucciface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@rucciface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rucciface)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/22 "2007-05-17T14:35:06Z")
I don’t have kids, but my nephew is the light of my life. His first word was something that sounded like “hamburger”. It also kinda sounded like “eye booger”. The world may never know. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/23 "2007-05-17T17:20:30Z")
[QUOTE=Antigen] My first word was “duck”. I was an odd child. [/QUOTE] Yes, but did it echo? 😛 Mom said I was a very quiet child. Didn’t babble much, didn’t try to talk babytalk, but when I was about 18 months old I was sitting in front of the TV. The picture showed a plane taking off. I pointed and said “AIRPLANE!” Then I shut up again for 3 months or so. Sort of like several people here wish I would do now. ---
**Author:** ![AHoosierMama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@AHoosierMama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHoosierMama)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/24 "2007-05-17T19:25:33Z")
My oldest, spoken on Navy Pier in December: “I’m cold.” Youngest (a big eater) “Cookie” followed in a few days by “Cracker” ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/25 "2007-05-17T20:43:34Z")
Don’t remember first words, but my (now 18-y-o) daughter’s first **sentence** was “Drew did it.” Drew being her older brother, of course. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/26 "2007-05-17T20:49:18Z")
[QUOTE=Antigen] My first word was “duck”. I was an odd child. [/QUOTE] That was my little girls first “official” word as well. Not _that_ odd. However… she was actually speaking before we were ready to “hear” it, if you know what I mean. Watching video of her as a baby we realize that a lot of her babble was, in fact, English (misspoken, but English nonetheless). For example, starting at 8 months she had this squeal that she would emit whenever she was excited… “uuuuuhhhhhhh-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” We were watching a Christmas video the other day of her second Christmas (1 year, 2 months old) when it struck us: she’s saying “What is it? What IS it?” We had no idea. Now, it’s so obvious it makes us feel like horrible parents, the worst ever. Our little girl was speaking and we didn’t even know! Bad JohnT!! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/27 "2007-05-17T21:10:37Z")
My oldest daughter, now almost 20, said “fuck” before anything else. I’d been warning my husband for several weeks to watch his language, lest she pick it up. I guess he learned his lesson on that one. My second, **EtherealFreakOfPinkness** , did not deign to speak until after her 3rd birthday. However, for two years prior to that, she’d make many animal sounds on command, including two different sounds for ‘cat’ (one being “what does a cat say?” The other, “what does an angry cat say?”) She didn’t have a first ‘word’ so much as a first ‘phrase’. One day, a couple of weeks after we had her signed up for speech therapy that hadn’t started yet, she walked into the kitchen and said “Hi, mommy”. I turned around, shocked, and told her to go get her coloring book. We spent a half hour with me pointing to various pictures, and her naming the pictured object. She claims she remembers not talking, but doesn’t remember _why_ she wouldn’t talk. My third, **mudgirl** , was also speech-delayed. We started teaching her sign language when she was around 18mos. old. Finally, a shade after her 3rd birthday, she started saying the word “more” while she was making the sign. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/28 "2007-05-18T17:01:31Z")
[QUOTE=Antigen] My first word was “duck”. I was an odd child. [/QUOTE] “Odd”? I dunno, depends on whether you were using it as a noun or a verb 😃 Dweezil’s first word was quite definitely “balloon”, at about age 10 months. It wasn’t pronounced clearly at first - it evolved over a week or so from “bxlkxxx” to “blxxooo” to “boowoo” but he clearly was referring to the balloon we had bouncing around the room each time. Moon Unit’s first word? Um, may well have been “duck” (noun) but I’m ashamed to admit it didn’t get our attention as Dweezil’s did. “Second Child Sydrome” and all that. It was later than 10 months though… her speech milestones were enough later than his had been that at age 2 we had her looked at by the Early Intervention folks (who pretty much laughed at us and said she was perfectly fine on target… Dweezil’s autism-related quirkiness just made him develop intelligible speech earlier than average. Moon Unit in fact tests out as _ **gifted** _, especially in verbal areas). ---
**Author:** ![Dying\_Butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d2c977/32.png) [@Dying\_Butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dying_Butterfly)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/29 "2007-05-18T19:24:44Z")
I said mama, followed by cat. My brother’s first word was sock. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/30 "2007-05-18T22:12:54Z")
I asked my Mom last night and she didn’t remember for me or my brother. ☹ She remembered that he said “laces down hole” when he was about one and had…wait for it…put his laces down a hole in the floor. Of course we made mama and papa noises and called ourselves Tutti and Winowin respectively (for Justin and Gwendolen) but she had no other info. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/31 "2007-05-18T23:04:01Z")
My first word was “pretty.” And yeah, I wound up being an artist. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/32 "2007-05-18T23:37:26Z")
My oldest daughter’s first word aside from mamma and dadda was “alligator”. It came from a book we used to read her every day. She loved the alligator in it. She said it all the time too and it was a few weeks before she started adding on other words and those were much simpler to say. ---
**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376/33 "2007-05-19T00:09:46Z")
My oldest’s first word was “eyes,” quickly followed by “no-noes” which meant “glasses.” My next child’s first spoke “hot”–very long and darwn out. She learned this because we’d give her food and blow on it, saying “hot, hot.” The youngest first spoke “uh-oh” while pushing his dish off his high-chair tray. This was repeated as often as someone would pick things up. The new grandbaby has just learned to say “Who-sat” when she sees herself in the mirror. “who’s that,” of course, is what we all say when we hold her in front of the mirror. Silly adults. Smart kids. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-words/404376.md?page=1)