The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150638   Message #3510685
Posted By: JohnInKansas
01-May-13 - 10:12 AM
Thread Name: BS: Children can be creepy
Subject: RE: BS: Children can be creepy
If you look seriously at how many of the kid comments are structured, and overlook to some extent the individual elements used in the structure, most of them are pretty typical "language experiments" that most kids get into at the ages in the examples. Combining a kind of idea found in an ordinary statement with a variety of different subject/object/verb sets is one way of learning how to communicate.

As amply demonstrated by a number of those who post quite regularly in BS here, the ability to create sentences with almost no understanding of what they mean is a quite common skill that has very early roots in childhood learning and sometimes is very persistent. (You know who I mean, I'm sure.)

The understanding of when you've said something with meaning and separating those from the times when you're speaking nonsense is more difficult, and not always something that happens; and we sometimes fail (or neglect) to recognize "child-speak" when it comes from some who have failed to grow up even though they "look bigger." (op.cit previous ref to regular posters here)

Some of the quotes are obviously just "cute" and some are a little "bizarre," but of course there's no context to the quotes. For a couple of the really "creepy" ones there's some suggestion of a a possible "unusual influence" that a doting parent might like to look for (hopefully for elimination/correction, if anything is found) but none of them look particularly unusual for kids of the ages included.

Many of the times parents (especially young ones - first-timers esp.) think the things kids say are unusual (or unusually cute) are only viewed as they are due to a lack of understanding of what's normal in the youngest ones. And of course, by the time they learn to recognize the "normal" for what it is they quite often decide to have greatly reduced further exposure to little tots. (note very slight sarcasm)

John