I believe.
I believe that just because I became a parent (yeah, so that’s a big ‘just’, especially with 4 kids), that shouldn’t relegate my vocabulary to cutesy nor deprecate my humour smiles of sympathy as yet another parent recounts how they’ve lost the privacy of peeing alone in peace. And yes, I’ve been guilty of sharing that story as well. But you realise very quickly after your second child that none of those stories are unique or uniquely funny, and that smiles of sympathy shouldn’t replace guffaws of laughter.
With that in mind, we had to think hard about the language we used in this blog, which is mainly read by parents. None of the language we use on this site should be offensive to kids, yet we also want to talk in tones we all appreciated even before we had kids. And THAT’s where this blog post started.
So we’re starting to create a list of banned words from this blog, the use of which by us would warrant a willing walk into the firing line. Ideally, banned from the English language, but our ambitions are small and we’ll start with this blog. Here goes:
- ‘Yummy Mummy’. Really? REALLY?
- For that matter, ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’, unless as a direct quote from a child. You’re a mom, a mother, a dad, a father, a parent, a i-don’t-know-what-i-was-thinking. All acceptable. But mummy and daddy is what small children say, and they should be encouraged to say it only until they’re too embarrassed to. Referring to yourself as a mummy or a daddy is only acceptable if you’re in that small section of British aristocratic society that never grew up and calls it’s own parents mummy, daddy, papa or mama until well past voting age. And votes which they should have rescinded for their lack of independent thinking.
- To friend, friending, friended and all other words that turn this noun into a verb which loses all sight of real friendship
- LOL. I was beginning to like ROFL a few years back, but that too should be consigned to the bucket. It’s rarely used for true LOL or ROFL moments.
- And in the same vein, ‘hilarious’. Especially when said in a real droll voice which implies anything but hilarious. If it really was hilarious, you’d be spitting your cosmo out, not looking over with a MILD smile and saying ‘hilarious’. Ain’t NOTHING mild about ‘hilarious’.
- OMG (including with insertion of random first letter of preferred adjective or expletive between M and G). Overused, and she probably doesn’t like to be abbreviated. Do you see self-respecting Japanese people saying OMB? Or a Pakestani exclaiming OMA? And where would an atheist go? OM? Then they’d sound like a Buddhist. So no OMGs in our blog.
We’re going to add to this list, but if you have other banned words you’d like us not to use, or indeed disagree with any of the above, feel free to suggest or argue below. Whatever.