Cooties
Sin Jeong-hun
An American and Canadian slang term generally used by children to
denote an unspecified state of repulsion, particularly towards another
person, usually of the opposite sex.
But I can hardly understand what 'unspecified state of repulsion'
means. Could you please explain this in more easy English?
Tony Cooper
wrote:
OK, you're a nine year old boy and not yet interested in girls. Some
girl bumps into you on the playground and you notice the other boys
are watching. You jump back and start brushing invisible bugs off of
you and yell out "Arrrgh! Cooties! She gave me cooties!". By
showing this sign of revulsion, and making the proper disgusted faces,
you have shown the guys that you think that being touched by a girl is
a terrible thing.
A couple of years later, you aren't ready to admit that girls interest
you but - secretly - you kind of like this one particular girl. You
demonstrate your affection by following her around and saying "She's
got cooties! She's got cooties!" You also shove her, pull her hair,
steal her books and play keep-away with them, and tease her in any way
that comes to mind.
This abuse and seeming revulsion is a sign that the hormones are
stirring. The girl, of course, has figured out what is going on long
before this. Rather than be put off by your churlishness, she's
writing notes to her girlfriends and saying that she thinks you like
her.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
baldycotton
Great explanation!
>A couple of years later, you aren't ready to admit that girls interest
>you but - secretly - you kind of like this one particular girl. You
>demonstrate your affection by following her around and saying "She's
>got cooties! She's got cooties!" You also shove her, pull her hair,
>steal her books and play keep-away with them, and tease her in any way
>that comes to mind.
>
>This abuse and seeming revulsion is a sign that the hormones are
>stirring. The girl, of course, has figured out what is going on long
>before this. Rather than be put off by your churlishness, she's
>writing notes to her girlfriends and saying that she thinks you like
>her.
I still do this and it still works. I'm 53.
geo...@ankerstein.org
Head lice is a real problem in US schools. These lice live in poorly
washed hair. Fancy hair arrangements, which are not taken out on
a regularly so that the hair can be washed, are often the souce. So,
often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
GFH
Don Phillipson
news:1131841506.3...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> The Wikipedia defines "cooties" as,
>
> An American and Canadian slang term generally used by children to
> denote an unspecified state of repulsion, particularly towards another
> person, usually of the opposite sex.
Cooties is a vernacular word for head lice.
The observation is that at age 8-12(?) boys and
girls avoid playing together. The implication is that
boys avoid girls because their long hair harbours cooties
or girls avoid boys because they are seldom clean and
thus may have cooties.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Mike Lyle
[...]
> Head lice is a real problem in US schools. These lice live in
poorly
> washed hair. Fancy hair arrangements, which are not taken out on
> a regularly so that the hair can be washed, are often the souce.
So,
> often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
As I understand it, in fact head-lice far prefer clean hair, and
washing doesn't do much to shift them. And they also prefer girls to
boys.
--
Mike.
Tony Cooper
<d.phil...@ttrryytteell.com> wrote:
>"Sin Jeong-hun" <typi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:1131841506.3...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
>> The Wikipedia defines "cooties" as,
>>
>> An American and Canadian slang term generally used by children to
>> denote an unspecified state of repulsion, particularly towards another
>> person, usually of the opposite sex.
You wrote:
>Cooties is a vernacular word for head lice.
>
>The observation is that at age 8-12(?) boys and
>girls avoid playing together. The implication is that
>boys avoid girls because their long hair harbours cooties
>or girls avoid boys because they are seldom clean and
>thus may have cooties.
I was in grade school in Indianapolis in the late 40s and early 50s.
I didn't know head lice existed at that time (1), and I don't think
anyone else in my school did. Cooties, though, I knew about. The
term was commonly used. Our cooties were imaginary things.
Cooties may be a term for head lice, but it is not a term *only*
associated with head lice. I don't know whether the cootie or the
head louse came first, but the two are not always associated.
And GeorgeH wrote in another post on this subject:
>Head lice is a real problem in US schools. These lice live in poorly
>washed hair. Fancy hair arrangements, which are not taken out on
>a regularly so that the hair can be washed, are often the souce. So,
>often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
I was not in school with a black person until high school, and there
were only two black students in a school with a student population of
over 1,500. The two blacks in the school had short and curly hair.
Blacks with fancy hair arrangements were not seen until years later
when the Afro became popular. "Cooties" may have a racial connotation
somewhere, but not in the years when it was a familiar term to my
ears.
When I was in high school, the "beehive" hairdo was popular with some
(white) girls. Talk about unwashed hair! Some of those girls went
for weeks without washing their hair. The term "cooties" wasn't used
by high school students, though.
If the original poster wants to understand the meaning of "cooties",
he obviously has to provide some context. It seems to mean one thing
to you, another thing to GeorgeH, and something completely different
to me.
(1) Perhaps I led a sheltered life, but I had never heard of head lice
until my wife and I moved to Florida in the early 70s and we enrolled
our children in kindergarten and grade school. We thought they were
something indigenous to Florida like giant cockroaches and scorpions.
Tony Cooper
I don't know how picky head lice are about their environment, but just
shampooing doesn't prevent them or cause them to go away. The shampoo
has to be a medicated shampoo, and other steps like changing the bed
linens have to be taken.
About once a year the newspaper here runs a head lice alert and
informational article. They say the biggest problem is that the
mothers of nice, clean kids from nice, clean homes refuse to believe
that *their* child could have head lice.
dimestore
<geo...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message >
> Head lice is a real problem in US schools. These lice live in poorly
> washed hair. Fancy hair arrangements, which are not taken out on
> a regularly so that the hair can be washed, are often the souce. So,
> often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
I think you'll have to provide a cite for this case. Wiki doesn't even
mention that type of usage. The term cooties was popular when I was a kid,
and I don't think I had a black classmate until I was at least 13.
ray o'hara
<geo...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message
news:1131890063.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Head lice is a real problem in US schools. These lice live in poorly
> washed hair. Fancy hair arrangements, which are not taken out on
> a regularly so that the hair can be washed, are often the souce. So,
> often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
>
> GFH
>
Headlice are most commonly found in white kids.
They have signs in classrooms that say "It is ok to share your lunch or your
seat nut not your hat".
Hartz Mt flea powder works fine to kill them. It is safe for humans and it
costs much less than products made for people.
ray o'hara
"dimestore" <dime...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:yYKdf.7385$Y61....@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
Cooties has always been a term for lice. A check with a dictionary will give
the definition as body louse.
Spehro Pefhany
<r...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
><geo...@ankerstein.org> wrote in message
>news:1131890063.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Head lice is a real problem in US schools. These lice live in poorly
>> washed hair. Fancy hair arrangements, which are not taken out on
>> a regularly so that the hair can be washed, are often the souce. So,
>> often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
>>
>> GFH
>>
>
>
> Headlice are most commonly found in white kids.
ObAUE: "In" white kids? Do they eat them?
>They have signs in classrooms that say "It is ok to share your lunch or your
>seat nut not your hat".
Sharing seat nuts is strictly prohibited here.
>Hartz Mt flea powder works fine to kill them. It is safe for humans and it
>costs much less than products made for people.
That's a good tip, which I hope I never need. Would it work on crab
lice, I wonder?
Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
sp...@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
The Grammer Genious
> Cooties has always been a term for lice. A check with a dictionary will
give
> the definition as body louse.
The term got a boost in familiarity because of the problem U.S. troops had
with lice in The World War. One verse of a popular barracks/marching song
went:
Oh, Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlee-voo.
Oh, Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlee-voo.
As the cooties rambled through her hair,
She whispered sweetly "C'est la guerre."
Inky dinky parlee voo
Raymond S. Wise
I wonder if that is indeed the explanation. I know of the historic
sense of "cootie," and from what I have read, it referred to body lice
rather than head lice. I've never personally heard "cooties" used to
mean anything other than the creatures of childrens' imagination.
I just took a look at a number of dictionaries and was surprised by the
wide range of difference in the definitions given.
Two of the definitions, the one in the *Encarta World English
Dictionary*, North American ed. and the one in the *Random House
Unabridged Dictionary* can apply to any sort of louse which might
infest humans:
From
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861600181
_North America_ *louse:* a louse of the kind that infests people (
_informal_ )
From
http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/cootie
--_n. Informal._
a louse, esp. one affecting humans, as the body louse, head louse,
or pubic louse. Also,*cooty.*
Two dictionaries, MWCD11 and AHD4 identify "cootie" with the body
louse, that is, _Pediculus humanus humanus._
One dictionary, the _Macquarie Book of Slang_ identifies "cootie" with
head lice, that is, _Pediculus humanus capitis._
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Mike Lyle
[...]
>
> Two dictionaries, MWCD11 and AHD4 identify "cootie" with the body
> louse, that is, _Pediculus humanus humanus._
>
> One dictionary, the _Macquarie Book of Slang_ identifies "cootie"
with
> head lice, that is, _Pediculus humanus capitis._
A usage sidelight on biological use of _race_. My Observer's _Insects
of the British Isles_ , 1953-1987 rpt 1992, (not a series to
recommend if Collins books are available) says head and body lice are
"races" of the same species. "The Human Louse, _Pediculus humanus_,
has two races, according to whether it lives on the head (sub-species
or race _capitis_) or on the body (race _corporis_)."
The Crab Louse is listed as another species, _Phthirus pubis_.
--
Mike.
dimestore
"ray o'hara" <r...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:m7qdnZ6PcJy...@comcast.com...
>> > often "cooties" has a racial connotation.
>> I think you'll have to provide a cite for this case. Wiki doesn't even
>> mention that type of usage. The term cooties was popular when I was a
> kid, and I don't think I had a black classmate until I was at least 13.
>>
>>Cooties has always been a term for lice. A check with a dictionary will
>>give
> the definition as body louse.
I don't wish to go back and forth here. But the usage I was talking
about was the idea that "cooties" is racist,
not that it was head-lice.