Grinding the Peeve into Dust

I have to complain once in a while, or I wouldn’t be blogging properly. Today, it’s about adults using the word “yummy.” Come on, people, I know you hear it a lot, but it’s a little child’s word. You use it when you want to get your four-year-old to finish his bucket of twisty lard.

Sidebar: how can parents look at all the absurdly fat people around them and then give their kids enough calories in one meal to feed all of Kenya for a year? Eventually I imagine this problem will fix itself when parents are too fat to reach their children’s mouths to feed them. Natural selection.

By the way, I have seen parents I respected and admired get outmaneuvered, and easily so, in a battle for dessert. Vis: pile of green beans. “Eat those green beans or you don’t get dessert.” Child picks at them and whines. “Okay, eat just five more and you can have desert.” In the end, of course, the kid gets all desert. I once knew of a kid who wanted ice cream for dinner, and when she didn’t get it, stormed out of the house and down the block. By the time mom wrangled her, they made nice by sharing ice cream for dinner. Mission accomplished, tantrum.

If I had a little one, I hope I would be like the Soup Nazi: “No dessert for you! Come back in one year!”

Parents, why do you even have dessert in the house? And so what if you kid doesn’t eat all his food? Have you seen any starving kids in the suburbs lately? Maybe it would do kids some good to starve on a couple of nights. Maybe he’d appreciate his green beans after that.

In conclusion, grrr!

2 Comments

  1. Oh Wil, you pedant*. If the Knowledgeum wants to co-opt the word for a dry place, and use it for yummy – er – tasty treats, that’s his prerogative.

    And really, I’d love to get all desert at dinner time.

    And where has the Knowledgeum been, anyway? It’s been over two weeks!

    * Disclaimer: I don’t actually know Wil, but if I did, I’m sure I would not find him in the least pedantic. The word in this comment is being used for dramatic** effect. Your mileage will most definitely vary.

    ** Note: I really wanted to say comedic effect, but that’s kind of like laughing at your own joke, isn’t it?

  2. I know the difference between desert and dessert, but I type “desert” much more often, so the muscle memory takes over.

    Kev and Wil, you two would like each other a lot.

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