A spider's first name, bubba, bee bo

[owlfish]

Poll

I hear quite a few mothers of Grouting's cohort referring to babies as "bubbas", but until this year, I'd never heard it used in that way before.

Comments

[lil_shepherd]

In my day it was "Incy-wincy spider climbing up the spout."

[heleninwales]

Seconded! :)

[sushidog]

I think of Bubba as a large chap in prison overalls, so hearing it used as a baby-name is weird to me, but I know people who use it both as a term of endearment and just a general term for babies.

[tisiphone]

My answer on bee bo didn't fit in the box. There's some research that suggests that 'baby talk' between carers and babies is a form of linguistic training, it basically runs over all available phonemes. Some are easier than others (which is why "mama" appears so early - it's one of the easiest polysyllabic strings to say.) Then when they're learning a specific language they sort out which ones belong in that language. So bee bo, bubba, etc. all fit nicely into phoneme-training. This is just my theory, but I think it's a reasonable one.

[nou]

This is my answer but better!

[heleninwales]

I have heard "bubba" used for babies, but in the north babies were "babbas". And just to go off on a slight tangent, I have been somewhat baffled recently to learn that "ta-ta" seems to be a slang word for "breast" in US English. When I lived in Manchester, a "ta-ta" was a walk, presumably because you said, "Ta-ta!" to people on setting off.

[bugshaw]

Ah, as in bodacious tatas. I always assumed "breast" ta ta and "goodbye" ta ta were pronounced differently.

[owlfish]

Me too.

[heleninwales]

They probably are pronounced differently -- or at least I hope so, otherwise there is huge potential for embarrassment. :)

[highlyeccentric]

I'd use 'bubba' as a term of address, and 'bubs' as the generic noun. As in 'mums 'n' bubs' groups...