Transcript of “Unusual Items from the Kids’ Menu”
We got an email from Carrie in Ohio who writes,
When my 18-year-old was two, she’d always ask for LMNOPs.
It took us forever to realize it was M&Ms she was asking for.
Isn’t that cute?
That’s very cute.
Carrie goes on to say she also called hot dogs go dogs.
And no matter how many times we practiced hot dog, she couldn’t drop the go.
She’d even say hot go dogs if we tried to get her to practice it the right way.
We still call them go dogs from time to time.
I wonder if she had that book.
Remember the go dog go book?
Go dog go.
Yeah.
I wonder if she had that book.
Maybe that influenced her.
That’s what I’m thinking too.
Maybe she had LMNOP.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because that was another book, wasn’t it?
From the same set.
Oh, that’s very cool. Kids are so cute.
And isn’t it great how we just pick up those expressions that the kids come up with and you use them the rest of your life?
Yeah, and that’s one of the things that frustrates linguists when they try to, like, come up with these really complicated expressions about why a language changed.
And, you know, sometimes maybe it was just a two-year-old.
Good point.
Maybe, like, Indo-European changed just because of a bunch of two-year-olds.
Maybe there was no big thing that happened.
Share your stories about kids and language.
