| July 22, 2003 My daughter is responsible for a new dialect. Last entry I talked about losing custody of words when people misuse or inappropriately imbue them for their own purposes. But the converse is true, too, with new words and phrases evolving to meet wonderful new communication opportunities. At least in my kitchen. My older daughter is proficient enough in spelling now that we can no longer talk over her head (literally) by breaking our gossip, expletives and bad news into there alphabetic roots. Can't even finger-spell them (American Sign Language), because she can finger spell at about the same speed I can -- a speed appropriate for her age, not for mine. Here's one example of the impact of this on the dialect in the Vincenti vicinity: It used to be that to express a mild profanity, I could spell C-R-A-P in my daughter's presence without issue. When she started to occasionally sound spelled words out to me, and in anticipation of having to answer "What's 'CRAP', Daddy?", I switched to C-A-R-P, and boldly began to pronounce it, besides (as in: "that was a carpy movie."). Then one day I used the word "carbs" in conversation and a few seconds later was interrupted by an "Excuse me, Daddy?" "Yes, what is it" "That word you used? It sounded like CRABS!" Well, the possibilities of sound-alikes (or sound-sorta-likes) being endless, "carpy" now needed to go away, and since I was already beneath the sea, I simply swapped fish. Now, in my house, if something is particularly below expectations, you can expect me to chastise it as "salmony". We've been creating idioms for some things all along: "frozen dairy confection" for ice cream, "aquatic adventure" for bath (add "aerial" to make it a shower), etc. But the first time "salmony" came out of my mouth -- instinctively, without any prior planning for any "sounds like" scenarios -- I realized that my wife and I are inventing a way of communicating that is peculiar and possibly unique to us. So the daughter we brought into this world brings new language into the world with her as she grows. Not salmony at all.. David Vincenti Advisor, Center for the Performing Arts at DeBaun Auditorium www.debaun.org; www.davidvincenti.com
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