“May a mouse eat you,” or in Persian, moosh bokharadet, is a term of endearment suggesting the recipient is small and cute. Another picturesque hypocorism: French mon petit chou, “sweetheart,” but literally, “my little cabbage.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “International Terms of Endearment”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Grant, how would you react if I took both of your hands in mine and looked into your eyes and said, may a mouse eat you?
I’d be confused.
Yes.
It’s nice to hold someone’s hands, though. That’s nice.
And I know you don’t mean me any harm, as far as I know.
Right, no.
Because you’ve been in the hardware store lately to the Axile.
I don’t know. This is from another language, right?
Yes, exactly.
If you and I were Persian speakers, you would have an entirely different reaction because I would say, which means may a mouse eat you, and it’s a term of endearment.
Isn’t that sweet?
May a mouse eat you.
Yeah, you’re just so cute and little, tiny, and sweet.
It’s the kind of thing that adults might say when they’re squeezing a little child’s cheek or something.
But people who are affectionate with each other say it too.
Isn’t that sweet?
That is cute.
May a mouse eat you?
I thought maybe it was a death warning that you were going to be buried into the soil and the mice would be able to eat your corpse.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I think we need to brush up on our Farsi.
Seriously.
But it is weird how many strange terms end up becoming terms of endearment.
I always loved my little cabbage in French and actually used that with my son.
And it wasn’t until much later, it was like seven or so, that he actually said, why do you call me that?
And I had to explain it to you.
Cute little cabbage.
I know, right?
What is it about terms like that that are so appealing?
And I also like we use, a lot of people use bean for their little baby, and there’s something small and cute about a bean.
The bean, the little bean.
And it’s funny, my Facebook is filled with the cutest babies ever from all across the world because all my friends are having babies.
Oh, they kind of look like beans, right?
Yeah, and a lot of people say, you know.
Or cute as a bug.
There’s something about being tiny, right?
That’s right, right?
It’s cute as in the original cute, like the small, well-crafted thing.
Not so necessarily the adorable or attractive part of cute.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, we’ll talk about some more terms of endearment later in the show.
And in the meantime, we’d love to hear from you.
877-929-9673 or send your terms of endearment to words@waywordradio.org.
