In a Word . . . Childish

Yesterday was Bloomsday. (Mr McGarry, I've told you before. We are a NEWS service at The Irish Times. We don't do "yesterday"! - Ed.) Sorry. Sir. Ahem.

You will recall the opening lines of James Joyce's novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. (As every reader of The Irish Times does of course and as you do too, O omniscient, dear Mr Editor. even if you are from Waterford).

It reads: “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. . .”

Have you ever heard a child talk like that?

Joyce goes on (no surprise there!) "He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt."

Lemon platt? Apparently no one has ever heard of the word “platt” either. Another Joycean invention.

Like his 101 letter word at the beginning of the impossible Finnegans Wake (Dear Ed, please, please make sure no sub puts an apostrophe either before OR after that last 's' in Finnegans or we'll all be disgraced. That's how Joyce wrote it.). Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk, it is claimed (by loads of idle academics with nothing more to do), represents a symbolic thunderclap associated with the fall of Adam and Eve. Sure!

They also claim that “lemon platt” refers to lemon-tasting sweets. So there. Who are we to disagree?

Children never use such words. You'll never hear them go "coochy, coochy, coo" or any such nonsense. It's adult talk and an insult to children. This was brought home to me at Christmas once upon a time when I was Santy for an article at the Square shopping centre in Tallaght.

I discovered then that the children took it in their stride, just another example of the silliness of this world, while their adults were like putty. They believed the little dears experienced the same sweetness (me) and innocence (children) as they did. They didn’t.

Childish, from Old English cildisc , Middle English childisch, meaning "proper to a child", "puerile", "immature".

inaword@irishtimes.com