Things I Can't Say

Tips and Tales from an Introverted Mom

Losing the Baby Words: No more "Ass"

Isn’t it cute how kids mispronounce things when they are little?

My oldest insisted that bananas were “man-ans” for the longest time.  Probably even longer than normal because we started calling them that, too.

My middle son has called bananas “bee- nanas.”  Still does. 

My older brother mistook bananas for the word “Batman.”  Even to this day, if any of us are making Banana French Toast, we call it “Batman French Toast.”

My youngest? He can say banana just fine.

What he couldn’t say? Bear’s name.

We discovered this when he would come up to us and say “Ass hit me.”

WHAT? “ASS” hit him?

Whose language was he imitating?

You know, since I’d never cuss and neither would my husband.

“Who hit you, honey?”

He jabbed a finger in the direction of my 4 year-old and says “Ass! Ass hit me!”

Poor little guy got zero sympathy, because I was too busy laughing.

“Ass! Ass!” he’d yell across the playground, calling to his brother.  Heads would turn toward me, appalled expressions on the faces of the playground mafia.

Every time he would tell on his brother, telling us something “Ass” did, oh, how Hubs and I laugh.

And then, suddenly, one day, he could say his brother’s name.

It’s sad when they outgrow their baby words. Though, it wouldn’t surprise me if he started calling his brothers “ass” again when they are all teenagers.

I don’t think I’ll be laughing then.

What words did your children mispronounce?

Comments

  1. my daughter still can't say spaghetti, she still says pasghetti

    my two oldest were both "binky" babies, yes my oldest never called it a pacifier or binky though. We often referred to it as his pacifier, he referred to it as his "Fire". His memories last long so, when his brother started talking, he got his brother to call it a "Fire" too.
    I can't tell you how many times people were looking at my boys as if they were crying wolf when they asked for their "Fire"s.

  2. So many that I can't remember. The one that stuck with us the longest is I amn't instead of I am not. Seriously, why isn't that a word???

    Now I"m dying to know his name… I'm trying to think of all the possibilities!

  3. We were going to meet another family for dinner and they have a little girl that Evil just adores. Evil kept saying I can't wait to see Alabama. I thought what in the heck is she talking about?
    When Savannah walked in Evil yelled, "Hey, Alabama."

    Cracked me up

  4. omg…that is awesome! hailey can't say "vagina." it comes out like "banynana."

    you never curse??? ever???

  5. LOL

    cLazy is our favorite of Zach's!

    Ben still says My for I alot

    and little baby G told me the other day he wanted to go to Nononals (McDonalds)

  6. We used to spell words when Doug was little, like when he needed a nap we would spell sleepy or tired. Till he got wise to what we were spelling and vehemently protest that he was NOT any of those things. One day Gene said looks like Doug is d-e-p-l-e-t-e-d.. From the back we hear Doug yell I am not delapitated. We both cracked up..

  7. My oldest has a speech imparment that was so serve that he could only pronouce "Truck, Train, and Tractor". So we have had tons of weird pronouced words and still do…

  8. In our house banana was ahnana. Elephant was elapanet. McDonalds was macadonals. Spaghetti was skettis. Pneumonia was ammonia and any kind of Mexican food was taco bell.
    You know my kids are grown now and I find myself STILL using some of these words.
    Lol @ Okas fire. My nephew called his paccis his power.

  9. B tries to say "Dead Gummit" but switches the G and D around and it sounds like she's saying a very bad word, that I would never tolerate being said in my house!

  10. My daughter never really mispronounced anything, but she always forleft things somewhere (forgot).

    My son still says bandulance (ambulance). Bridge was bitch, so it was really fun taking the bus to and from downtown. There are no shortage of bridges here! For words that have a consonant followed by an R, he would replace the consonant with an F – frass, fruck (thank goodness for that R!).

  11. I pronounced most words. But then, I did have to spend like 12 years in speech therapy before they gave up on me, so there's not a particularly funny story associated with it. Ooh – wait, I might have one! I pronounced 'g' as 'd' so I called my grandma Dam for a few years. Does that count?

  13. I cannot think of anything off hand that any of my kids mispronounced. Even my grandson, lisp and all, says the right words pretty much the right way. However, I get a kick out of my grandson at almost 4 years old telling my son, "Watch your mouth or you are standing in the corner later!" Or his description of a bad dream…"I had a nightdream I cut off my finger…the BA-A-AD finger…cuz I ate salad before sleepin'."

  14. Lasterday instead of yesterday, smarshmellows instead of marshmellows, and tomato instead of tornado.

  15. Courtesy of Boy2, my daughter's name was Pizza until she was old enough to be mad about it!

  16. That is so cute! My niece calls my nephew (Sam) BoBo-raina. I have no idea. Also, both of of her uncles (Steve and David) are Day-Day. Even if they are in the same room. So adorable!!

  17. Mine says "buh-duh" for banana; however, the funniest is that my nephew, twenty-months, somehow bastardized "paci" (pacifier) into "pussy." My brother-in-law and his wife are completely a-type, up-tight, and did I mention he is a minister. So his kid is running around the church daycare asking for his "pussy." It couldn't have happened to a better pair. lol.

  20. I wanted to add Baby Girl's funny one… when she started to speak, she absolutely refused to learn to say her own name. To her, her name was ME. She was three and a half before she stopped responding to everybody's question, "What is your name?" with "ME!"

    My oldest was always called Seanboy when he was younger. He new his full name at a very early age, so when he went to preschool and they asked him what his name was he responded "Seanboy (insert his middle name followed by last name here)" We broke him just before kindergarten started.

  21. Emily had a hard time for awhile saying truck. It would come out with an "f" sound so she was constantly saying the "f" word-just like her dad when he was little. It must run in the family.

  23. You are right. The mispronunciations are adorable.
    Son #2 pronounced the word chimney as "chimbley". It was so cute I paid him a quarter one time to say it whenever I wanted him to for the rest of his life. He is 12 now and pronounces it correctly.

    Tayte called Saigie….Gigi for so long we all started calling her that. (I will tell her to consider herself lucky….it coulda been "ass".)

  24. I swoon every time little buddy says "Peeeeze?" when he wants something. I'm clearly in trouble.

  25. Hysterical! I literally started laughing out loud when I got to the "ass" part. My co-workers surely think I'm insane.

  26. oh I loved this, because at 3, they say EVERYTHING wrong, but they have learned how to say some things correctly, and I miss those mispronuciations for sure.

    one of my favorite is Jacob calling "New York City" …"Old McCity" don't ask me how he came up with that, but we call it "Old McCity" and he corrects us now and says "No…it's NEW WORK City"

    *sigh*
    I loved reading this.

  27. All 3 of mine struggled to say Fuddruckers right. There is nothing quite like having your three year old loudly announce in the store that "We are going to F–kruckers!". Fortunately it was a short stage due to my diligence at getting them to say it right.

  28. Yeah. My youngest cousin had trouble with the /fr/ dipthong for the longest time.

    So "frog?"

    Came out "FU**!"

  30. Shell this is so adorable. Seriously dying. My kid calls Lady GaGa "Little" GaGa. And says its a baby word so he likes to say it. And they both mispronounce Luigi from Cars. Kinda like Wiligah! And they scream his name, all "italian" like. Kills me.

  31. Oh, I LOVE it! That is soooo funny! 🙂

    My 10yo only recently learned that 'chacos' are really 'tacos.' It was one of those things that we thought was so cute that we all called it chaco night! 😉

  32. Okay, that's funny!!!
    I remember my youngest saying the "f" word at the dentist office. Only it wasn't the "f" word, it was something else but it sure sounded like the "f" word! LOL

  34. My son also did the cute "Peeeze!" thing instead of please.

    He would also try to say "foreign contaminant" (Like the M-O cleaning robot from WALL-E) and it would come out sounding distinctly like "God D*mmit."

    Also? He could not properly say "clock" for a long time. He would leave out the "L." I have this on video, somewhere. Hehehe

  35. When my son was one, the word "Frog" came out sounding like the F-bomb. What was worse was that our Barns and Noble had a giant Frog hanging above the childrens area. Every time we would go there he world scream "F*CK, F*CK" very loudly.

    It was awesome. Or awful, however you want to look at it.

  36. Reminds me of the pioneer woman juice box post. Now that is funny. Her boy is going to get made when he learns to read her blog.

    My stepmom got really mad at Little guy for calling Vitch the wrong word. My teens thought is was hilarious.

  37. My little one called mittens "muffins" for the longest time. This past winter was the first time he said "mittens" and I thought I was going to cry!

    Don't ask me why "mittens" are even a vocab word here??? We live in FL??

  38. Ooh, "fork" is a funny one with my two year old! 😉 Also, another funny one, though not a mispronunciation, is what my kids refer the hooks on our Christmas tree. Every year, it's hilarious as my kids try to hang up the ornaments… "Mom! I dropped my hooker!" and, "Oh, no, I just stepped on my hooker!"
    Onto a non-dirty one… my kids call chapstick, lip-chap. We all call it that now!
    It IS sad when they outgrow their funny words and sayings! I often don't correct the ones that don't HAVE to be corrected so we can hang onto those words a little longer! It's a fun stage!

  39. That's hilarious. I tried to figure out what it could be, but I'm drawing a blank.

    My grandmother is Lala because my older cousin pronounced banana's balala's. Thus, Nana = Lala.

  40. My daughter is speech therapy so she mispronounces a lot. She ends most words with a "T" sound or she'll put it in there somewhere. But right now, I laugh all the time because she says "mines" (that's mines! Mines!) and "McDonKals."

  41. Oh, you're making me cry.
    I would always tell my husband, "PLEASE don't correct them..it won't last long."

    And it didn't.

    How I adored when xavier mispronounced his older brother's name, Alec, as "aak."

    I LOVED IT.

  42. The little one couldn't pronounce elephant, but the way he did do it was super cute. I can't even phonetically type how he said it, but I miss it now that he is learning how to say it properly.

  43. Oh this made me laugh!

    There are quite a few words because they get to mispronounce them in french AND english. And of course I'm drawing a complete blank right now ….

    But I still remember when Young Knight (who didn't speak a word of English) came back from a visit to the States, and when I asked him what he wanted for dinner, he responded "anyfing" which I thought was sooo sophisticated. 🙂

  44. This is was such a cute post and I love how it brings back memories of baby words that are long gone… Miss K used to say applesauce instead of octopus. It was so funny too, because the hubs and I would enunciate it." Ahck toe puss." and she would smile and say applesauce! It was hilarious!
    Little E calls the car wash , wash car ans spaghetti is psgetti. Thanks for sharing!

  45. My daughter has the hardest time saying nail polish. She always says paint nolish. My husband and I never correct her and we laugh each time. For some reason we just can't seem to correct her!

  47. Aww. LOL Our son has trouble with the word "big." For whatever reason he pronounces it "boom." He calls our bed the big bed so it comes out the "Boom Bed…" never did get why he calls it that. Oh well.

  48. It's totally sad when they do! kate still says, "earf" for "earth." Every time she says the Our Father and gets to the line, "On earf as it is in heaven", I still giggle.

  49. I don't think I could have contained my laughter when I heard that either though!

  50. Lots and lots of mispronounced words here that equal a lot of comedy! My favorite still is Tater pronouncing fork "f*ck"

  52. bananas = balanas
    Noah = Wowa
    fork = fvck
    penguin = pengin

    there are lots in our house:)

  53. oh my – my toddler has several!

    a few come to mind right away…

    music = nunic

    he also has trouble prounouncing the T-R sounds; he replaces them with F, instead

    so,
    Choo-Choo TR-ain = too too fein
    TR-uck = fwuck (nice. eh?)

  54. Babe says most words wrong since he's little but he just started saying sakettiahs for spagettios because we always say 'uh ohhh spagettios!'

  55. Mallory has always mispronounced Spaghetti. Cracks me up every time but I never can remember in between exactly what it is that she calls it.

    But the funniest thing was her misinterpretation of adult's words. We told her that a diary was a place to write about her private thoughts. She threw the diary way into the back of the closet. When asked why she said she didn't want to write about her private parts … they're yucky and they stink! 🙂

  56. My oldest couldn't say granola. So every time he'd want a granola bar he'd ask for a gorilla bar. Whenever someone who wasn't me or my husband was with him, they could never figure out what the heck he was asking for.

  57. That is hilarious, I hope you got that on video for later in life.
    It is funny how they just stop saying things wrong one day, in an instant it is gone.

    My daughter at 2.5 years old calls a truck an expletive, I will let you figure that one out.

    She also calls her good friend Charley, Farley, makes me laugh every time.

  58. Dylan calls Abbey "Ad-deeee", and it is so precious. My favorite is listening to Abbey sing songs. She's got the tune down and everything but sings made-up words most of the time 🙂

  60. every night after dinner my little ones want to know if it's time for bazert yet…

  61. My youngest says beenana too. My oldest still says liberry.

    When she was younger my oldest always called the remote the marote…it took forever to get her to say it right!

  62. ahhh…it's kind of sad when they start pronouncing words right. It's like that little part of their "baby-dom" is gone forever…like a rite of passage. My 7yo used to call grandma "hamma". We loved it! And our 4yo (who mispronounces everything)used to call the infamous Phineas and Ferb.."bineas and berb". But one of my faves is "Ca-ca"…that how our 2yo says his oldest bro's name. LOVE IT!!

  64. Oh so funny about the first commenter… my first and last both called their binky's "fire." hahaha.

    So hmmm….my oldest called garland "garlic" til she was about 10. She also called Pinocchio "Doh-chio" My son has had many…but the one I can come up with is more of a replacement word than a mispronunciation. He used to call restaurants "eat stores."

    A$$ totally kills me. hahaha.

  65. Why can't I think of anything tonight…lol! I am at a dead blank, although I know there were a ton! I do remember Emily telling me to take Brad back to the hop-i-tal the day I brought him home…poor little guy!

  66. JDaniel calls his cousin Kevin cousin. He can now say his name and does it to see what he will say.

  67. My son's got a ton – it often takes some imagination to understand him.

    "neena" = banana
    "sasses" = glasses
    m and n sounds are switched (goodnight "nouse")
    "zeepa" – pizza, though sadly that only lasted a couple of weeks

    He also adds a syllable for "s" sounds: "sa-tore" & "sa-kool"

    Most are harmlessly adorable but we did have to warn his daycare teacher when he first started identifying cats using a combination of "Sasha" (one of our cats) and "kitty."

  68. Oh, Shell- I love this! YES, it's adorable and sad all rolled up in one when their mispronounced words are gone. Sob, sniffle.

  69. That is so funny! My little guy calls 'oatmeal' …. 'email'…That's what it sounds like. There are a few more but I can't think of them right now, its cute though 🙂

  70. Bo went to speech, so we had/have several but the best are Baby Girl calls my MIL Dammy instead of Gammy & my nephew said fork with a u instead of o. My brother thought this was the funniest thing ever.

  71. I somehow forgot my son's favorite non food-related word: "die-sa-four" for dinosaur.

  72. Now that is funny! Kaia can't really say anything yet but I'm looking forward to it all 🙂

  73. My son says "Tomato storm" instead of tornado storm, he also says Hostible instead of hospital. We rarely correct him because it is too cute!

  74. My daughter's favorite stuffed animal was a frog and somehow frog came out as f**k and she would run around the house at bed time looking for it yelling, what sounded like, f**k, f**k, f**k!

    Now she's in kindergarten and learning to read and we're on phase two… a couple of weeks ago we were waiting in the doctors office (very crowded and quiet) and she is trying to read a book. She got stuck on a word and I told her to sound it out… I should have been paying better attention. The word was "count". Next thing I know she has sounded it out alright… but she missed the "o"… there she is in her very loud and proud voice letting the whole waiting room know that she just read C**t. She had no clue what it meant she was just proud she read a new word…

  76. Ha! That is awesome! My sister and I both said tankcho instead of thank you, and my mom was notorious for saying tankcho to her clients at work for years!

  77. Lol! Now that would be funny. I love when my kids are just trying to say lots of rhyming words and we all know what rhymes with truck.

  78. Oh! SO true. My third is 2 and I keep telling myself to appreciate the cute little lisp and all the "help yous" instead of "help me" etc. I love it all.

  79. My daughter used to say "Chris-chris" instead of Christmas when she was little. It was so cute! She also said "cack" for cat, "see-suh" for pizza, "ga-mah" for grandma. Sometimes she called grandma "pee-pop". lol

    My son would say "wace cah" instead of race car, "gwamma" instead of "grandma", "Day doo" for thank you.

  80. Oh god, Shell. I had all but forgotten my daughters!! Thanks for making me remember. Cotton Balls = Cock N Balls. The first time she said it, I sprayed milk out my nose. It was totally worth it though

  81. My daughter cannot say banana. She says something that sounds like belly. I have no clue where the "l" came from but she just can't say it at all!

  82. My son did the clasic f*ck instead of truck. And I know there are more but Im too tired to think of them!

  83. so many.But I especially hate when the "me's" turn to "I"s. It breaks my heart a little lot:(

  84. Oh my gosh. I seriously laughed so hard at your blog entry I had tears in my eyes!
    My daughter trying to say ketchup came out blup blup. So now that she is almost 9 we call it blup blup.