For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for March 09, 2013

Good 1

I remember this is part of why mom and dad always insisted on correct pronunciation around us and always using a full vocabulary. This strip, right here.

Heh yes – we’ve always spoken to our kids as were they grown-ups. How on earth are they supposed to know correct pronunciation and vocabulary if it isn’t used around them?

My parents always insisted on using correct pronunciation too. I wonder if that manifests itself these days in my refusal to use text speak on the odd occasion when I have to text someone. Or am I just an old curmudgeon. Me dunno.

You wonder why? If I didn’t know this comic was being rerun, I would wonder if she will ever speak like an adult!! Get with the program, Elly!!!

My mom spoke Yiddish to her friends or my aunt.

I never spoke like this to my children once they were older than like 18 months or so. Up that point it is ok (IMHO) to speak in “baby language” to a child. Once they were up walking and feeding themselves, it was time to talk to them in real words.

I suppose my parents spoke in baby talk to me, I know they did to my son and to many babies I saw them hold and care for. We, my wife and I, babied and goo-gooed our son and other infants.

You know what, they all survived just fine, no speech impediments and it didn’t socially destroy them amongst their peers. I guess I’m in the minority here, but I have no problem with what Ellie is doing here, and what my parents and my wife and I have done, and will likely continue to do when our grandchildren come along. They will be just fine.

My mom’s parents spoke German in front of the kids, so they couldn’t understand what was being said. Apparantly they did it way too much though, because to this day, my mom and her sibs all understand spoken German…

knowing your mother tongue is great. My parents spoke German at home and that was how we all communicated at home. I found it hard in elementary school because I had a slight accent and you know how kids are.

Scientists go back and forth on whether baby talk (or the sing-songy intonation) is good or bad. I just can’t do it, and I am proud every time someone asks one of my kids (at about age 3) “Can I?” and they respond “Yes, you may.” Of course, some “errors” of pronunciation, syntax, etc. are developmental and can’t be avoided.

I’ve always talked in normal words and voice to my kids. My oldest always spoke more maturely, but my youngest had a couple of words that she had trouble with (i.e. “instresting”, “pafific”), so I guess it just depends.

My mom does not know proper and correct English. She speaks English. When she was a child grew up in small one room school, she is 87, back then school board brought in HS students ready to leave school to teach students and those HS teens were then not properly educated. Imagine this the male teen told students if you cannot pronounce or say a word use wheelbarrow. There was lots of wheelbarrows being spoken. So sad. Results I was not brought up to speak proper English. Nor when I was a kid did I learn nouns, proverbs, verbs, proper nouns and the list goes on. School house rock helped some. When I grew up if we did not know the name of something we spoke of we called it whactha-mecall-it or thing-a-majig.

I always believed in speaking normally to my kids from day one. It just didn’t seem in me to talk “baby talk”. I might have missed out on the “fun”.

Yiddish is awesome. I’d have learned it, but they also needed to speak English (assuming they knew it) since English is the language you needed to get by.

I’ve only recently begun to work with babies and toddlers and this has made me determine that I will NEVER talk to them in baby talk!

my daughter in law,who was from virginia,taught my granddaughter to address all woman as miss and first name here.she would always from about age 3 reply pleased to meet you when introduced to someone she didnt know.she is ten now and i very well spoken child who will rebel any time now

My X and I spoke Spanish when we argued, mostly so the kids would not understand but also to be sure HE DID get the point. (Crazy Cuban is dead now, and not missed by me). I always hoped the kids would learn Spanish but theirs is no better than most in US.

@Kab,My cockatoo was very flirtatious and taught herself to say “wheelbarrow” during a time when some burly workers were filling the base under my new waterfall with concrete (hauled in a wheelbarrow). She was trying to lean in that direction and get onto there so I told her “No, you don’t want to get on that dirty wheelbarrow”, she selected to just repeat that word a couple of times. That was the only time she used that word, tho’. Your story reminded me. The waterfall was built back in 1999. This was taken 10 years later.

Awwww! You guys are too sensitive! Repeating the cute things kids say is love. Our daughter had a cute way of saying SHARE? The kids are now long gone, but the phrase remains. I used the phrase with my husband the other day and got an instant reply. It is part of our family lingo and it means there is a connection between us.

Tee bike? (take a bite)

I talk baby talk to my cat, and she’s fine!

I talk baby talk to my cat all the time, and she’s fine!

And yet, you write with the small letter “i” when referring to yourself instead of the capital letter “I” which is the way it should be done. How intelligent is that?

:-(

Instead of saying “owie” (spelling?) I would say “dan-ger-ous!” to my daughter when she was a toddler. I thought it was adorable when her eyes would get real big and she would solemnly shake her head and repeat “dan-ger-ous!”

Hey Lynn atre you listening to urself. This is way too funny

Oh wait I stand corrected I eant Ellie

My mom said her parents spoke so much German around the house when they were small, her oldest brother had trouble with English when he started school. After that Grandpa & Grandma gave up speaking German entirely.

Can i be arrogant? yes, but we all can be, and i would rather be proud i was raised right than proud i wasnt.

Good for you young man. I am 62 and from a part of the country(south) that generally wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

One thing though(and I’m not being mean), have you forgotten how to use upper case and apostrophes?

My entire family insisted on using English around me. I knew I was rejected. Oh yeah… did I mention I was deaf and even my friends weren’t allowed to use Sign in the house? Love you, too, family. (blows raspberry

Idiot

I never liked baby talk. But to each his own.