Peep-Eye

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Alisa Keown. I’m from Indianapolis, Indiana.

I noticed that my mother-in-law and my husband’s aunt both use the words peepi instead of peekaboo with our son.

And I’m wondering if that’s a family thing or if you could tell me the origins of it.

Peepi. And where are they from?

From Indiana.

Okay. And how old is your son?

He is 18 months.

And so they say peepi instead of peekaboo. Do they also ever do peekaboo?

No, all I’ve heard is peepie.

And you grew up with peekaboo, I guess.

I did.

And where are you from?

I’m also from Terre Haute, Indiana.

Oh, you’re ruining my plan here to find some kind of regional difference.

Why couldn’t you have said Maine or something like that, or Boston even better?

This is one of those great things that when you first find the other variant of it, you’re amazed.

And it sounds like you’re kind of surprised that they say peepie, right?

Yes. I didn’t understand what they were saying when I first heard it and made them repeat themselves.

But it’s the same peekaboo game, right?

You put your hands over your eyes, and then you put your hands away, and you look at the child and go,

Peep-i!

That’s right. That’s the game.

Well, the reason I know this is that my mother’s family, who are Boston Irish, they all do Peep-i.

And another family that I have from my father’s side of the family, it’s peekaboo.

And, of course, I know peekaboo is the most prominent form in the United States, but peekaboo is not unheard of.

And as a matter of fact, in the Dictionary of American Regional English,

They explain it’s very southern and south midlands.

I’m not surprised to find it in Indiana.

They’ve got some records here of people in Tennessee and Kentucky using it,

So I’m not surprised at all to find that Peepi exist in Indiana.

And I’m also not surprised that Peepi and Peekaboo exist in kind of more or less the same territory

Since Indiana is kind of straddling two different dialect regions of the United States.

But even more interesting to me, did either of you know that they often say something different in the United Kingdom?

No.

Yeah, Bebo.

They say Bebo.

Bebo.

Or Pebo.

And there’s a great thread on the blog by Lynn Murphy.

The blog is called Separated by Common Language.

And she’s an American linguist who lives in the United Kingdom.

She teaches linguistics there.

And so naturally, her whole theme is the discussion of the differences between American and British English.

And she talked about this a couple years ago, and her commenters just opened up with all this great stuff.

Some people think it sounds like pee-ho, and peep-boo, and pee-bo.

And even more interesting is if you look this up in any sufficiently advanced dictionary,

You will find that the original form was bo-peep.

What?

Yes! It’s crazy! It’s crazy!

And then somehow it got turned around.

And I think if you think about the nursery rhyme that we all know,

Little bo-peep lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them.

It’s about hiding and finding, right?

Oh, Elisa, did you ever think of that?

No, not at all.

And just this morning, I was watching PBS television with my son.

And there’s a program, I believe it’s Canadian, called Caillou, C-A-I-L-L-O-U,

Which is a French-Canadian name for a little boy.

And he has adventures and gets into trouble and stuff.

And the game that they played with his little sister in the program,

They don’t say peekaboo, and they don’t say peepi, and they don’t say bebo.

They say peek.

That’s all that they say.

It’s just peek.

Elisa, who knew?

I had no idea.

Anyway, more than you wanted to know.

How is it spelled, just out of curiosity?

Well, the Dictionary of American Regional English spells it peep, P-E-P-E-P hyphen E-Y-I.

But I have also seen it spelled P-E-E-P hyphen P-I-E, so peep pie.

Yeah, I mean, Elisa, do you think of it as the I’s?

Because I didn’t realize, I was thinking of P-P-I.

I was thinking one of those cakes in a urinal.

That’s how I was thinking of it, too.

You are? See? See? We were on the same page then.

I wouldn’t be surprised if our listeners can report some other examples of the peekaboo game with a different name,

Because it’s one of those things that just passed on from family to family.

It has a strong regional and familiar content.

You tend to use the version that your parents taught you.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some other ones that we haven’t mentioned today.

And, of course, you’re welcome to send those along.

So, bottom line, in Indiana, you would hear…

Both. Peekaboo is going to be more common across the United States, but peepi also exists and has a fair kind of overlap in that part of the country from the south where it is more common.

Wow. So every time you play this with your son, you’re going to think of Grant now, right?

I am.

My son is almost three and he still plays it, but now it’s with blankets and furniture instead of his hands.

See what you have to look forward to?

You’re welcome, Lisa. Thank you for calling with such an interesting question.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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