Favorite Blanket Names

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lauren Pappin from Arlington, Texas.

Hi, Lauren. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Lauren.

Thanks for having me.

Sure.

Our pleasure.

There’s a word that I was wondering about that my grandmother always uses for usually a blanket, like a child’s blanket.

Like, whenever I was a kid, I had this one favorite blankie, like we all seemed to have, and she called it okush.

And she seems to call, I don’t know if it’s the Czech word or what, but she uses this word for blankets usually, I think.

Ukush.

Mm—

So would you use it too when you were a little kid?

I wouldn’t really. It was just such a weird word for me. I never really used it.

I just heard her use it, and it’s just a strange word to me.

And Lauren, did you carry it around like Linus, your little security blanket?

Yes, I did.

Well, why don’t you tell us about it? What color was it? And did it have little figures on it?

The blanket I have, which I actually still have today, it’s just a little pink blanket.

It has like a silky trim on it.

I had one of those too.

Really?

Pink with silky pink trim?

You had a woo-woo?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. And you still have it? Do you still carry it around?

I don’t carry it around, but I do still have it.

Oh, where do you keep it?

I actually keep it in my bedroom. I’m married and everything.

And my husband’s like, well, you should really get rid of that.

I was like, no, I can’t get rid of it.

Your husband wants you to get rid of your ookush?

Yes, he does.

Oh, man. Boy, well, you came to the right place. We have to solve this, Grant.

She should be able to keep her ukush.

Well, she should.

She should.

Yes, yes.

This is all our way of saying we have no idea what the Czech word for blankie is.

I’m not finding it in any of my resources here, and it’s under a variety of spellings.

All that I can say, this reminds me of a children’s book about a mouse named Owen who has a yellow blankie that he likes to take everywhere.

And ultimately the solution for his parents is that his mother cuts it up into a little bit of handkerchiefs so he can actually bring them around in his pocket.

He doesn’t have to carry the whole blanket,

And some people don’t really know that he’s still got his woobie with him.

Oh, that sounds like one of those horrible Grimm’s fairy tales, you know,

Where the central character gets chopped to bits.

No, no, it’s actually a pleasant resolution.

I don’t know. What do you think, Lauren?

Plus it means there’s more corners for him to suck on,

Which is kind of what kids do with blankets, right?

Well, yeah, yeah. You don’t still suck your thumb, do you, Lauren?

No.

Okay, just checking, just checking.

So your grandmother, who was of Czech descent, called it an oochush.

Mm—

And what did you call it?

I just called a pink blanket.

A pink blanket?

Oh, you didn’t have a pet name for it?

No, pink blanket was his name.

Yeah, I think I had a blankie.

What about you, Grant?

Nothing, no.

You didn’t have a woobie?

No, no, no.

I learned that one from your website.

Well, you know, I had a roll of barbed wire that I like to carry around with me everywhere.

It was rusted.

This explains a lot, Lauren.

I called it Brutus.

No.

Oh, that’s good.

Well, I tell you, Lauren, all I’ve heard in this country is woobie, blankie, lovey, and nai-nai.

You know, like night-night.

But I’m sure that, I mean, I know that we have Czech speakers who listen to the show.

So maybe they’ll inform us as to whether or not ukush is an actual Czech word.

I know there’s a Polish word that sounds sort of like schmata for a little kid’s security blanket, sort of like the Yiddish.

Wow, this whole schmata.

Right, for fabric or cloth or textile, right?

Yeah.

Or clothing.

Yeah.

But the Czech, well, we’ll just have to put the word out.

Okay.

That would be great.

All right.

It could be a Polish word maybe because she’s of Czech and Polish descent.

So maybe it is Polish.

I for some reason thought it was Czech.

So Lauren’s going to be, you’re going to be there clinging to your blankie until you get an answer, right?

Yes.

Yes, I will.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye.

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