Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Ogblay Adnessmay

Today's Wonder of the World is...Speaking in Code!

Flickr photo by shutterberry
Oohday oohyay eakspay igpay atinlay?
You do? Ategray!
What fun it used to be to speak a secret language. Even if everybody but your little brother understood it.

Now that our kids are too smart for us to spell things out, (There's one B-R-O-W-N-I-E left. Do you want it?) Todd and I have been thinking we ought to come up with our own secret language.
Or maybe we should just learn Eggy Peggy.
Are you fluent? You could be. Just add the word egg before each vowel in a word.
So "How are you doing?" becomes "Heggow eggare yeggou deggoegging?"
I'm afraid those meddling kids would figure it out. Darn.

I found Eggy Peggy on Wikipedia with a whole slew of other crazy languages. We English speakers aren't the only nutty people in the world. Just about every common language has a wacko code for fun.
Have you heard of Louchébem?

Flickr photo by *julia
It's French butcher slang, used especially in Paris and Lyon. You take the first consonant, move it to the end, and add one of a group of suffixes.
So le boucher (butcher) becomes Louchébem, and le patron, Latronpuche.
Weird.
I don't think I need French to be any more confusing.

I'm still confused over Ubbi Dubbi.

Flickr photo by the Saint Petersburg Times
Remember it? From Zoom?

Maybe you have to learn it when you're really young and have a flexible brain, not a stiff, dusty one like mine.
Speaking of little ones, these three babes developed their own secret code when they were tiny.

Hey Cassie, Jill, and Bailey!
Or is it Bailey, Jill, and Cassie? My triplet nieces undoubtedly understood their own little language, though it took us a little longer to catch on. Now they're teenagers and talk in text messages.
And hey little Amelia, Sarah, and Stu! That's quite a load of babies you've got there.

When Sarah was a baby and had her days and nights mixed up, we'd take her to Waffle House.
They have their own diner language.

Flickr photo by That Other Guy Over There
I'll have my hash browns scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked, ease-play.

Arr, get it right landlubber, or me might have t'see ye t'Davy Jones!

Flickr photo by Doxieone
I'm a fool for pirate talk.
Ahoy, mateys! (Or does that mean hello?)

Ave-hay an onderfulway ayday!
Love, Becky

25 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, that Ben Stiller is a total crack up, isn't he?

That was a good one. I'm not even going to try to write a comment in code (which would be the totally witty thing to do). It's much harder to write pig latin than to speak it, LOL!

I'm with you on the ZOOM thing. For one thing, I always felt like the show was dumb...even as a kid! I thought "ubbi dubbi" was ridiculous! LOL!

David Ebright said...

Guess it's kinda like speaking French with a southern accent....

ForCryingOutLoud said...

Not to leave out "bubble gum" language: Hubba-a-vubba-e U hubba-e-a-rubba-dubba o-fubba i-tubba?
My grade school friend, Joel and I became quite good at it!

I hope pig latin isn't affected by this swine flu thing!

Adrienne said...

We had some kind of gibberish in high school. I think the appeal was to have one more way to be obnoxious...
Ben Stiller is a nut.

Renee said...

Oh Becky thanks for the best laugh I have had in ages. Ben Stiller har har har.

Love this post.

xoxoxo

Ellen said...

Thanks so much for a really great laugh, Becky :)

Suzanne Casamento said...

OMG! I cannot believe there is an Ubbi Dubbi language. One of my old roommates had a whoppa choppa language. We would use it to speak to each other and it went something like this:

"Whoppa choppa hoppa loppa?"

"Froppa hoppa doppa coppa."

I just sent him a link to the video. He needs to know we are not alone...

Susan Sandmore said...

Ben Stiller did not follow my Pig Latin rules. We always tacked on a "way" on words that started with a vowel. Yes, I am nerd enough to start an argument over Pig Latin!

May Vanderbilt said...

For some reason, we never did the pig latin at our house. We spoke Gibberish. I don't know how we learned it, but it turns out that it's real!

http://www.wikihow.com/Speak-Gibberish

It's really fun to speak if you're a fast talker--and we were!

Creations by Marie Antoinette and Edie Marie said...

Hello Rebecca,I remember alot of my friends speaking pig latin,I could never catch on.Arn't thoughs babies cute and I imagine a handful.LOL...Your always a wonder to visit.
Thank you for stopping by.I am feeling better from the near TIA I had a few weeks ago,but I'm now catching everything that comes my way.I hope that swine flu stays away,I can't curse it out in pig latin...LOL...I have a terriable cold.I'm still not up to blogging yet,but I will answer any comments left or emails.I'm going to try and come back in the begining in June.Please say hello to everybody for me if you get the chance.I miss you dear friend and hope all is well with you too.Hugs and kisses Marie Antionette

Randy and Linda said...

Great blog today, I'm glad you caught my drift. As kids we never learned pig Latin - it just wasn't an "in" thing for us kids in the 60's. That Ubbie Dubbie is too silly for words! There are so many b's it will make your lips swell in no time. I wonder if the deaf have some secret language they might use occasionally might use? Hmm. I like phonetics that have different meaning from the real word. Reverse speech is pretty cool. Here's a phonetical reversal I found by accident => NASCAR is pronounced exactly like Roxanne in reverse. In music it's all over, plus nowadays so easy to create reverse words when you use a music editing software. "another one bites the dust" is " I love to smoke marijuana" (Queen). Stairway to Heaven (led Zeppelin), by Condi Rice's favorite band and mine too, has some strange hidden messages. "if there's a bustle in your hedge row ...". Have you ever gotten one those emails that is a paragraph in which every word uses the same letters as the real word except that some I the letters are swapped around- a little bit like the newspaper jumbles, except they are easier,and have context along with them, tomake it even easier. Cool stuff Becky. Very nice blog.
Randy

Cathy ~ Tadpoles and Teacups said...

Ben Stiller!!! Yes!!
Yeah, Zoom creeped me out. I did like The Eclectric Company, though.

Linda Summerfield said...

Never got the hang of ubbi dubbi, but I am fluent in Pig Latin.

Pocket Full of Prettys said...

Thanks for the good laugh. And thanks for the sweet comment you left for me! Hugs my friend! Renea

Ronnie said...

Thanks for the good laugh!

anna said...

Hah, great. In German we used the B-language as kids. If there is a vowel one just has to say a "b" and then the vowel again.
For example, "Wie geht es dir?" (How are you?) would become "Wiebie gebehts ebes dibir?" (As the ie is only spoken as long i)

LW said...

I use to love ubbi Dubbi…

Louise

Jen P said...

Ben Stiller looks too genuine - too funny! Thanks for sharing.

I hated all those lang thingies at school - my contemporaries spoke eggy peggy and I couldn't get my head round it at all - but I went on to major in Italian and German !

Rebecca Ramsey said...

You guys impress me so--bubble gum, gibberish, whoppa choppa, B-German, ubbi dubbi, plus all those real languages? Either you had a lot to hide or your brains are awfully flexible.

Unknown said...

I really pig Latin but don't think I could ever get the hang of Eggy Peggy or whatever.

Susan said...

Unnyfay ostpay!

Rosemary said...

So funny!
My Son inlaw says that my daughter and I have secret twin language that he doesn't understand.
We always laugh when he says that.
Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
Rosemary

Anonymous said...

:) I have begun to teach the boys Pig Latin but diner slang is really the best.

Jojo said...

Plub-ese dub-on't lub-augh bu-bon't Ub-I lub-earned ubi-dubi wub-atching ZOOM. That ZOOM Z-DOUBLE O M BOX 350 BOSTON MASS 02134 ... SEND IT TO ZOOM!!!!


come on and zoom, come on and zoom-zoom...

Rebecca Ramsey said...

Jojo, I still love to drive my children crazy singing, "O 2 1, 3 4!"
They have no idea what it means.