language investigation 1

The two words that first come to mind aren’t unfamiliar, although I never hear anyone else use them: Mama, Papa. This is what I always call my parents, preferring these pronouns to Mom and Dad. Mama and Papa are rhythmic, trochaic, and informal. I also feel that these words have more opportunities for inflection than most parental pronouns, such as Mom and Dad, which are short words. They’re palindromes, but boring palindromes. To me, Mom and Dad sound too generic, words without affection because of their overuse, but I suppose that at one time my preference of Mama and Papa was generic, as well. I didn’t always use these words. I think I got them from foreign languages (which I don’t speak), particularly the Italian film, 8 ½, whose protagonist uses both words: Mama, Papa, pronounced with a kindred affinity, the type found in folktales or in movies set in the past. Mama and Papa seem to be antiquated words, now, and in that process they have also developed connotations with being a vocabulary of children (I can think of many more instances in which children use the words Mama and Papa more than adults).

You have to understand (or some variation of this phrase), followed by either an opinion or observation by my parents. I can’t remember if they’ve always said this or if recently they’ve said it more often. Politically, I identify as a progressive and my parents identify as liberals. For years we’ve spent our meals arguing about politics and the planet, which we apparently enjoy. You have to understand…they’ll introduce one of their ideas, or counter one of mine. I’ve heard this phrase from many people, but from others it lacks sincerity and feels more abrasive. From another mouth, You have to understand has a “talking down” sound to it, yet from my parents it sounds constructive. This is perhaps unfair, I realize, to primarily have a good connotation of a phrase when my family uses it but a suspicious connotation when other use it. Maybe someone else ruined its reputation for me, or maybe it’s because the sentence is in a hostile command form You have to… and I’ve allowed my parents to get away with using it.

My sister and I use quotes and voices and gestures around each other quite a bit, so often that neither of us can remember where our expressions come from. Gross McClose! I’ve yelled hundreds of times, and I’m almost positive my sister and I coined this phrase because I’ve spent years asking people where this is from and nobody is familiar with it. My sister, however, isn’t familiar with it, either. Perhaps I’ll discover the origin of this phrase and be disappointed that it’s part of my immediate vocabulary.