Children's Folk Speech

Probably no other wordsmiths are as creative as children. Children love to create new words and to use old, established words for new purposes. Children's language is continually evolving —at a rate much more rapid than that of adults. Children have no Edwin Newmans, William Safires, or John Simons to tell them what they must or must not do. Their rule of thumb is: if it sounds good and communicates meaning pungently, then say it.

Children are continually creating new, topical expressions. Most of these expressions have a short "referential after-life" (that is, they are forgotten quickly) and have very local diffusion (for example, they are spread only within one school). Yet, some children's folk speech has considerable diffusion and longevity and may in time become part of adult vocabulary.

What do we mean by children's folk speech? A precise definition may be impossible; however, we mean generally those words and phrases spoken by children, which are distinctively different both from standard American usage and from the slang used by other social groups. Obviously the boundaries of such a definition are vague; for example, is the word "crummy" children's folk speech despite its frequent usage by other groups and its near-acceptability? Still, we have general agreement on most instances of children's folk speech. Some include speech style under children's folk speech, but since aspecpts of style have been discussed as "speech play" I shall not consider it here.

Given its physical proximity to adult culture, it is surprising that a children's culture exists and has such a wide and distinctive lexicon. Listening to preadolescents talk among themselves without self-consciousness and without a need to speak "properly," one is impressed by the richness of their vocabulary and with the realization that sizable portions of their vocabulary are either unknown to adults or are unusable by them. Even when known by adults this speech is seen as irrelevant and "childish" and not worth adult attention.

Perhaps for this reason —what Brian Sutton-Smith has named the "triviality barrier" —children's folk speech has been little studied. The major series of studies of children's folk speech has involved simple enumerations of terms used in the game of marbles¹ or among British "public school" students.² Several studies of children's culture have dealt with children's folk speech, although not in a systematic fashion.³

This lack of research is unfortunate because the examination of children's speech tells us both about children and about language generally. Although it is important for children to maintain a system of communication that is partially independent —even secret —from that of adults, the good teacher, parent, or librarian must be able to communicate with children, not just on the adult's terms, but on the child's terms.⁴ Being aware of the folk speech of children permits this beneficial opening of communication barriers. It must be recognized, however, that, because of the local and evanescent character of children's talk, the compilation of children's talk must be continuous. Second, some terms, because of their obscene or deviant nature, will be very difficult for adults to learn about and will be altered if known. Hearing such terms as "bite the bag," "marmie," or "fig newton" will not upset adults because adults are ignorant of their obscene referents. Likewise, sixth-graders in one community used the word "schmedley" to indicate that one wanted to smoke a cigarette with the other. If adults knew the significance of "let's schmedley," a new code would have to be developed.

Folk speech also tells us about language. Because of the rapid change of children's folk speech, it serves as a laboratory for examining language change and diffusion. Children's folk speech can be internally differentiated on the basis of how widely it has spread, and the process of diffusion of such items can be examined. Some terms in children's folk speech are regional. For example, what is the term that is used by boys to indicate the prank of sneaking up behind another and yanking his underpants? In...