From the Mouths of Babes

Last­ing lin­guis­tic change is root­ed in the devel­op­ing speech pat­terns of chil­dren. My Greek teacher once told us that while “caca” is con­sid­ered a mere child­ish vul­gar­i­ty, the Indo-Euro­pean root for shit is [you guessed it] “ka-ka”. So when I thanked a lit­tle girl for hold­ing the door for me at the library and she replied with an elid­ed “y’el­come” I decid­ed I might as well start using that myself. I’ve already grown up with my own devel­oped eli­sion [H’lo instead of Hel­lo] so it ain’t like it’s nev­er been done before.

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