For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for May 05, 2009

Years ago when I helped my mom babysit, there was a big mirror over the mantlepiece. I would do the same with the babies. They would react like they were seeing another baby and reach out to it. I got them close enough to touch the glass and let them figure it out for themselves.

My daughter’s first word was “ma ma”, we were sure her next word would be “da da” or something normal. Instead it was “Ah-boo”; the name of the cat.

@ejcapulet, haha, ah-boo is actually a babytalk word in Icelandic, short for allt buid which means all finished :D

My first word was “antidisestablishmentarianism” but it sounded quite different when I said it.

That’s what you get when you name her something long like Elizabeth. It’s gonna take a long time for her to pronounce that right.

well it is better than liz calling someone @**hole like my neighbors 2 year old did

I’m waiting for “Lizard Breath”

The first time I showed a mirror to the dog, he barked and did a “play bow,” wagging his tail. He then approached the mirror, sniffed, then looked behind it. Whenever he was shown a mirror after that, he mostly ignored it.

My wife’s daughter waited to speak until she could speak in sentences. She was a very independent child and now is a very independent woman, like her mother. The first time she spoke she said “Do it self”.

Northwoodser says: My first word was “antidisestablishmentarianism” but it sounded quite different when I said it.

You sound like our family. We started the kids with antidisestablishmentarianism and then went on to global thermal nuclear war. Everyone commented on how good their pronunciation was as they were learning to talk.

Lizzie did a good job in the last panel with “me - Elizabeth”. Her name is tough for a baby to say. Very cute strip today.

My parents were concerned about my older brother not talking except for mama and daddy when he was already 18 months, until the day they were driving and his first sentence was “I want a cookie”. I think they gave him the box!

Over at the FBORFW site, under Behind The Scenes, in Q and “EH”, someone asked when the strip takes place. It now answers: MODERN DAY TIMES.

A few days ago, someone wondered where Ellie got “Nizzie”? Does this answer your question? Except Lynn got ahead of herself- or maybe that is why Elizabeth thought “nivabeff” was right….

This strip of FBorFW is so cute. My niece used to call me BD when she was toddler. Sheeshh! I hated that name she called me. :-/ :-]

summerdog, the 1980’s were not that long ago, hence still considered “modern”.

Though FBOFW did update the secretary strip; original mentioned “looks like Cheryl Ladd” (I never figured out why Lynn didn’t mention “Karen Kain” or “Carole Laure” instead), the updated one used Shania Twain (I guess Lynn decided that since the family is from Ontario, they have no clue of Western Canada–hence that strip didn’t refer to Lisa Brokop).

My name is also Elizabeth and when my little sister was first learning to talk she couldn’t say my name so she always just said sister. It stuck so much that now, even though she is 15, she still calls me sister (it is surprising for her to call me by name) and my parents even refer to me as sister sometimes when talking to her.

How mama & dada got their nicknames: globally, most babies mouth ‘mmmah-mmah’ first, so of course mothers the world over have said ‘I’m number ONE to you, you bet that’s me! :)’ Sometime after that babies prattle dah-dah-dah, so moms point to dad and say ‘You’re number TWO around here, so that must mean you….’ Some roots in truth, lol.

arceedee, a few years ago I saw a tag in a shopping complex parking lot on River Rd. in Bethesda about a mile west of DC’s city boundary which said “AMAMAH”; I asked the owner whether she had been in Kerala (she had not) due to the word being rather similar to the common transliteration of the Malayalam (also in Tamil and Telugu, albeit less common use) term for maternal grandmother. Her reply to this was that her daughter’s daughter had come up with that term so she’d put it on the tag.

When my brother was little he could not pronounce the letter “S”. So instead of saying sister or sissy he said “Hissy”. LOL!!!

Thanks for your interesting comment, prasrinivara! In fact I first heard information about worldwide variations on ‘mama’ from a widely traveled Indian co-worker at the Theosophical Society, an organization I worked with for years - its headquarters is in Adyar, Chennai (Madras).

Didn’t the terms get recycled when April was born? Farley was “goggie”, Liz was “Nivabeef” and Michael was “Mike-o” for April’s first terms.