So.
There I sat at lunchtime today, in the local Earthfare. I was enjoying a lovely game of some Mah-Johhng-like game on my Palm Pilot while letting the delicious medley of curried chicken and andouille, mushroom-topped spinach salad with roasted red pepper vinagrette, and szechuan-style tofu bring blessings to my digestive tract.
A couple of individuals, post-retirement age, took the table behind me, and I inadvertently kept had bits of their conversation pull my attention from my game a few times, despite my lack of interest in their conversation.
One of these moments was when the fellow was offering a taste of something he’d brought with him, food-wise, and I suppose he’d cooked himself, to his gustibatory companion. She accepted, and then… then… the unholy happened.
“My, that’s nummy-num-num!” She remarked.
blink
I know that everyone has pet peeves, and perhaps baby-talk is just one of mine. I don’t mean when you’re talking to a pet, or a baby… I can certainly deal with those. It’s when one adult addresses another with the same sickly-sweet patois you’d proffer to a four year old with a Hello, Kitty fixation. it wasn’t jsut this one phrase, but several more which followed in the same style over the next few minutes, that made me finally bus my table and leave early.
I feel a fair amount sorrow for her lunch companion. It’s not easy to be treated as incompetent, and to me, that’s what the baby-talk tone of voice entails.
It probably didn’t help that here was a person, well into her sixties, using up-speak along with the baby-talk.
So, in the spirit of expurgating the foul demons… “OUT, OUT I SAY! Begone with your infantocentric idiom, your pediatric phraseology, your toddlereqsue tonguemusic!”
Anyone else find this irritating, or am I just being reactionary again?
