POSTS WITH TAG: language

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    It happened in the middle of the night. My son was crying and it was my wife’s night to get up with him. Throughout our son's first year, his nighttime tears generated a frustrating checklist of potential problems: Does he need a diaper change? Is he teething? Did he lose his lovey? Is he having separation anxiety? Does he have a fever?

    But this time, my son gave the answer right off. He tapped the tips of his fingers together, using sign language to signal more, meaning he was hungry. A couple chopped up strawberries later, his appetite was sated and both he and my wife (and me, the unlucky light sleeper in the family) could lay down our heads for the rest of the night.

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    Everybody, gather 'round ye computer monitor, for it is time for another child-unintentionally-swearing video. We love those! This time, it's a 21-month-old girl saying "flamingo." Only she pronounces it just a wee bit differently than most of us do. And I don't know how she came up with this pronunciation because it doesn't even make any sense. Still awesome, though! Here, let her father show you -- over and over again.

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    Can I ever get enough of the videos with toddlers mispronouncing words to sound like they're cussing? No! I cannot! Here's a video of a little boy saying "dump truck" over and over again. Guess what it sounds like he's really saying? I'll give you a hint: It rhymes with "crumb luck." And thanks to the wonders of technology, this golden moment of innocent childhood has been preserved for all of us to enjoy.

    So here you go. Because it's Friday and you could use a good laugh. And because this is not your child. But you've probably heard something similar come out of your own kid's mouth at some point -- accidentally, of course.

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    Remember Sweet Brown and the "Ain't nobody got time for that!" meme she inspired? She was interviewed on her local news right after a fire at her apartment complex. She was describing how she'd run outside, barefoot, inhaled smoke, and now, "I got bronchitis! Ain't nobody got time for that!" It was only a matter of time before someone auto-tuned it into a catchy dance tune

    Well, there's a new Sweet Brown. She's Michelle Clark of Brookshire, Texas. A monster hailstorm swept through her town. And here's how she described the sound: "It's like KABOOYOW! KAPOOYOW!" Clark yells. And just like that, a new meme is born.

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    My 7-year-old said "shum" for "thumb" for a really, really long time. My now-5-year-old called it a "fum." I don't know why I loved these mispronunciations so much, but I did. SHUM. FUM. It was weirdly sad when they stopped -- I almost wanted to encourage them to go back to their slushy babytalk versions.

    I was thinking about verbal kid-isms recently when my youngest expressed his frustration with a U.S. map jigsaw puzzle. The pieces didn't fit together very well, and he got mad about halfway through when he bumped it and all the states slid apart, earthquake-style. "I don't even like Nopelahoma!" he said, storming off.

    NOPELAHOMA.

    Sadly, my kids are flying past the biffed-word stage -- who approved this "growing up" business? Where can I file a complaint? -- but I have fond memories of some of my very favorite mispronunciations.

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    You might want to start paying close attention to what you're thinking around your kids, because new research indicates that toddlers can actually read our minds. (Isn't that just great?)

    Yep, children all over the world were studied, and the results were published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society: B. Researchers found that toddlers as young as a year-and-a-half are able to figure out what we're thinking.

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    Remember the last time you saw two deaf people engaging in a conversation with sign language and wondered, even maybe feared, that they were flashing each other a series of gang signs instead of, say, talking about where they were going to stop for dinner or debating the diversity of the presidential cabinet? Never you say? Come on. Not even once? Well then, that confirms even more that last week’s attack on a deaf man in Burlington, N.C., was completely and totally senseless. While Terrance Ervin Daniels was minding his own business, walking down the street signing to a deaf friend, he was attacked and stabbed several times in the upper body by a completely random bystander who believed the two men were engaging in cryptic, gang-related gesticulations.

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    Ben Affleck was recently photographed with his cutie patootie daughter, Seraphina, and it's not her outfit nor her dimples that are drawing attention. It's her reading material! Ben was carrying Seraphina out of a breakfast joint in L.A. and in his hands he held a book. But not a SpongeBob or Dora or even Dr. Seuss book. Nope, it was a Dickens book! Yeeesssss, you know, Dickens, right? I hope. Charles Dickens, my friends. Okay, it was a children's illustrated version of a bunch of Dickens classics. But, get this, the book is recommended reading material for children ages 9 to 12. And Seraphina is 3! Woah. Could Seraphina be a genius?

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    Ann Coulter is at it again. She says she is fed up with the 'word police' and will not apologize for calling President Obama a 'retard'. I wonder if she stomped her feet like a little kid throwing a tantrum when she said it. Probably.

    Never mind the fact that she was trying to insult the President of the United States by employing schoolyard bullying tactics. Sticks and stones, Ann. However, even in the face of criticism from advocates for people with disabilities, including Special Olympian John Franklin Stephens, she remains adamant that what she did wasn’t wrong. Apparently, we all just need to get over it.

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    Toddlers may be young, but that doesn't mean they haven't learned how to fool us into getting exactly what they want! From the minute my little guy started talking, I quickly picked up on a few tricks he had for trying to persuade me into doing whatever it is he had in mind.

    And while bigger kids are notorious for telling us all sorts of things with hidden meanings while heading back to school, toddlers can be just as clever in their efforts to fool us. Besides clinging to our legs to get out of going to preschool or day care, here are 10 other popular toddler phrases and their deciphered meanings for your reading pleasure.

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