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Cellar Scribblings
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: brian on January 31, 2018, 09:29:02 pm ---Dummy is the normal world we use. I have heard pacifier but it sounds like somebody trying to be very correct and proper. Never heard the other terms. Wikipedia says Pacifier is American English, Dummy is British English.
--- End quote ---
Well, we probably shouldn't get into which sounds more correct and proper, British vs. American! :laugh:
I thought dummy might mean meant stuffed animal because it's a whole figure with a body and character, like a ventriloquist's dummy. In this context, it doesn't have that meaning and just sounds vaguely insulting. (You know in America "dummy" is a kind of childish insult to mean "dumb person," right? Maybe it's not over there.)
Binkie is a nickname, but pacifier is the main official word, and obviously it means it pacifies babies. I guess it's kind of correct and proper in that people wouldn't use that as a verb in ordinary conversation. If a baby were crying, you wouldn't hear someone say "Let me try to pacify her."
I was going to say it's like "comforter," but a comforter, though it can be comfortable, isn't really intended to comfort, per se.
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on February 01, 2018, 10:30:07 am ---I thought dummy might mean meant stuffed animal because it's a whole figure with a body and character, like a ventriloquist's dummy. In this context, it doesn't have that meaning and just sounds vaguely insulting. (You know in America "dummy" is a kind of childish insult to mean "dumb person," right? Maybe it's not over there.)
--- End quote ---
To add another layer, we have an organization here called the Denver Dumb Friends League. It's been around forever. It's for the benefit of animals who don't talk, thus, are dumb. :-X
CellarDweller:
This reminds me of a story.
My mom was running a day care out of our house, and she had a a few that had binkies.
One family was trying to break their son (Lenny) of the binkie habit. He was determined he was going to keep it.
One day, he arrived without his binkie, and after Lenny's parents left, my mom said: "Lenny, where is your binkie?"
Lenny got wide-eyed and replied "The mow-mow took it!"
Mom: "Um....what?"
Lenny: "The Mow-Mow lives in the cellar, and he eats binkies, so he took my binkie."
We could not BELIEVE his parents told him that.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on February 01, 2018, 07:04:56 pm ---This reminds me of a story.
My mom was running a day care out of our house, and she had a a few that had binkies.
One family was trying to break their son (Lenny) of the binkie habit. He was determined he was going to keep it.
One day, he arrived without his binkie, and after Lenny's parents left, my mom said: "Lenny, where is your binkie?"
Lenny got wide-eyed and replied "The mow-mow took it!"
Mom: "Um....what?"
Lenny: "The Mow-Mow lives in the cellar, and he eats binkies, so he took my binkie."
We could not BELIEVE his parents told him that.
--- End quote ---
I'll have to say that doesn't sound like an entirely bad idea.
Apparently Lenny bought the story. By the time he's old enough to understand anything, he won't remember it. He seems to have accepted it as an adequate explanation of why he can't have the binkie. And if he's old enough to understand supernatural concepts and speak in full sentences, he probably is too old for a binkie anyway.
After all, parents keep up the pretense of Santa Claus until kids figure it out when they're like 8, so this doesn't seem that much different. Except, well, in a scarier way. Now Lenny doesn't just have to worry about a home invasion from one strange man once a year -- now the monster lives in the basement and is there all the time! :laugh:
Is it possible one of his parents drove over the binkie with a lawnmower? I realize Lenny may have lived in a part of the city where there aren't lawns to mow, so just a thought. If it were a mower, it would fit the story except he'd have confused the cellar and the garage.
Side note: On that other thread, we were discussing American vs. British names for things. I wrote the sentence above before rereading your post and realized I had said "basement" and you had said "cellar." I wonder if that's an East Coast/Midwest linguistic difference. I guess as CellarDweller, you would know!
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on February 01, 2018, 10:05:41 pm ---Side note: On that other thread, we were discussing American vs. British names for things. I wrote the sentence above before rereading your post and realized I had said "basement" and you had said "cellar." I wonder if that's an East Coast/Midwest linguistic difference. I guess as CellarDweller, you would know!
--- End quote ---
I'd hazard a guess it isn't an East Coast/Midwest thing, or isn't exclusively, anyway. It may be more complicated than that.
My dad, who was raised in a more or less rural/small town situation, tends to say "cellar." I was raised in a more urban atmosphere--relatively speaking, anyway--and I tend to say "basement." I also seem to make a distinction: a "basement" is "finished" (some type of flooring, maybe a drop ceiling with inset lights), whereas a "cellar" is "unfinished" (dirt floor, no walls except the foundation, maybe light bulbs on wire for illumination). But after I've spent some time with my dad I tend to fall back into some of his speech patterns and say "cellar."
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