Transcript of “Bagsy! Bags Not!”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there. My name is Nathan. I’m calling from Omaha, Nebraska.
I was just calling about Bags Not, and it comes from the show Bluey.
All right, set this up for us. You got to tell us a little bit more about this.
Yeah, tell us about Bluey.
There’s a kid’s show, and I believe it’s Australian, and it’s called Bluey.
And my wife and I started watching it.
And then we had our first child.
She’s now a year and a half old.
And she walks up and she goes, bluey, bluey, bluey.
And the new season came out.
And there was an episode where they said, bag’s not.
And it obviously meant, like, not it.
Like, I don’t want to do it.
And so I looked at, my wife a few minutes later and I checked our daughter’s diaper and I kind of looked up at my wife and I said, that’s not.
And, yeah.
And so that’s been kind of an ongoing joke of like, that’s not, I don’t want to do it.
But I started trying to research the history, and, you know, I can’t find anything on Bags Knot.
I don’t know.
Oh, my friend, we’re going to enlighten you.
Bags Knot is Australian, but originally it was British, and it comes from the UK.
And there are so many ways to stake a claim like that in English, because that’s what this is a version of.
The wonderful folklorists, Iona and Peter Opie, called this sort of thing a part of the children’s code of oral legislation, which I think is a perfect description.
Because so much of childhood is about negotiating your rights with other children, isn’t it?
Yes.
The code of oral legislation.
So it’s about what’s yours, what’s mine, what we are arguing about, who has rights, who doesn’t have rights.
And so this particular notion of bagging something goes back to bagging a trophy or bagging a deer when you’re hunting.
So at one point, this bag was literally about adding something to your bag, carrying away your haul in the bag or your score or your catch for the day.
And then it was borrowed with the notion of I’m bagging that, meaning I’m taking that.
And it’s shortened, as children will do or anybody will do.
So I bag that or I bags that.
And the forms can be, you might just say bags or bagsy or bagsy or I bags or baggy mine.
Or the negative, which you’re using, bags not.
Which means I don’t want that or I refuse that.
Or I’m not taking my turn or I reject that.
Okay.
Yeah, I’m not going to change that diaper.
Yeah, yeah, I’m not going to change that diaper.
I don’t want my turn.
So sometimes it’s not about taking a physical thing.
It’s about taking an opportunity, like bagsy, which means I get to take the next turn on the swing or the slide or what have you.
Okay.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Nathan, the next time there’s a full diaper, you might mix it up and say bags instead of bags.
Yeah, yeah.
Give your wife a break, dude.
For sure.
For sure.
Always.
Well, thank you.
All right.
Take care.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
