The other day, the neighbor girl was swimming with my kids and came up to the deck to tattle at me:
"Your son just crossed mother."
As with sentences that make no sense (and song lyrics), my brain tried to make this series of words into something comprehensible. Maybe she said "Your son just crossed over." I checked. He was still breathing. Looked fine. Whew.
Maybe it's "Your Sun Jug's crossed another." A sun tea reference? Not brewing any.
I: Do what now?
SHE: Your son just crossed mother.
I: "Crossed mother"?
SHE: Yes.
I: Oh.
I: ...
I: What does that mean?
SHE: He said something untrue.
I: You mean he lied.
SHE: Yes.
I: Oh.
I: ...
I: "Crossed mother" means lie?
SHE: Yes.
I: Oh.
Anyone out there familiar with this? Is this a colloquialism I'm just not down with? Or has her family come up with a new, creepy-in-a-"Yes, Mother"-Psycho-kinda-way coinage for fibs? Thoughts...
10 comments:
(Got here via polyglot conspiracy)
Well, I haven't heard of this particular turn of phrase, from my (limited) experience with the speech of little children (in the range of 3-6 years) has shown me that sometimes children will use often-heard phrases to describe similar-but-different situations. For instance, a child who always hears (after having spilt a bowl of food) "my, my, look at the mess you've made" from her mother or father may repeat this phrase when s/he observes a similar situation. Granted, your situation is slightly different (it's a report of such an incident, and can't be called soliloquy, which what I described might be)
Can we call the "my, my" example a solilquialism?
I'm guessing this came from the neighbor mother saying something like "don't cross me" and the kid associating it with the transgression of lying rather than the situation of going against her mother.
(I also found you through Polyglot Conspiracy, and I'll definitely keep reading!)
Well, I tried to hedge that statement, since I'm not really sure whether, when a parent says something like that, it's soliloquy or not. I imagine it could go either way, but then I've never actually said something like that...IIRC. What the child interprets it as (assuming they have such a distinction) is a different story, I suppose.
I am just so tickled by the fact you said, "Do what now?"
You have officially turned into your dad.
"Do what John? Do what John?
Come again do what?
Do what John? Do what John?
Do what? Do what? Do what?
Do where John? Do where John?
Wiv what, wiv whom and when?
Trific; realy trific.
Pardon; come again." -Eric Idle
Oh... and I discovered you through Polly Science in high school and haven't stopped since.
Don't forger Ms. Knickerbocker, Ms. Johnson... and who can forget Ms. Management?
I would guess crossing her mother would be just about anything mama didn't like including the lie but not exclusive of everything else.
The child clearly needs to learn to lie better.
Dude, you owe me two referrals.
JK, OMG!!!! I was totally crossing mother when I said that.
PC: It's been a goal of mine to figure out how to make a column on the right to list other blogs. I tried once, and it went wacko. I know it's not hard, it's just that I scored really low on the HTML portion of the ASVAB.
And, yeah, you got me over (OK, to) the coveted "10" mark for visitors. Thanks! I've been hovering there ever since!
These things take time. You'll get there one day, son...promise. Just DON'T CROSS MOTHER.
Whew, I sure do love that. Cross mother. It's great.
PS - Doesn't blogger give you a links section automatically? (This has everything to do with me wanting to help you do what you want to do with your site, not me wanting to be linked. Swear to uncrossable mothers.) Also, I am a website design ig-no-ra-moose, as they say at Cracker Barrels the nation over. Hence my love of WordPress, which does everything for me, and also my envy at the fact that you even have ONE picture up on your site. Actually you have lots of images. I have 0. Null. = sad/lame
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