TRANSLATIONS ROCK

Hey girls, it's Sunday! This week's theme is have a guest blog for you. My guest is my totally awesome friend HADKEY. Enjoy :D.

A brief apology: Before I begin writing, I sincerely apologize to Katie for forgetting I had to write this.

Wassup, Nerdfighters! Fellow Nerdfighter Hadley Todoran here as your guest blogger, here to give you all some insight on my friendship with the fantastically awesome Katie.

So, as you may or may not know, Katie is one of my many adopted children, and I've found that our mother-daughter relationship is surprisingly similar to more conventional (i.e. biological) mother-daughter relationships. I keep an eye on her progress in math class, I occasionally have to break up fights between her and her other siblings, and once in a while, I'm the target of her teenage aggression. (I am, of course, referring to the time she threw a copy of The Scarlet Letter at my neck, but I digress). Now, one may think that what with Katie and I being so close in age, we might have been able to avoid the usual mother-daughter problem of generational differences in areas such as slang terms. However, despite our near lack of age difference, we've run into a similar problem. Katie has her own bloody language.

We've been working through this pretty well, and fewer things are getting lost in translation as time goes on. I'll give you all a sample of what I've been able to translate so far, in alphabetical order and with phonetic spelling because I really don't know how the hell she spells some of these.

Okiedokies – okay, but with more letters; (“Okiedokies, this is as simple as this whole translation thing gets.”

Pachoo – can mean a variety of things; generally describes movement (“Then it goes pachoo!”); there are exclamatory forms as well: “pachooble” (negative) and “pacheeple” (positive)

Papooey – very similar to “pachoo,” but specific to explosions (“You should watch the one where the world goes papooey!”)

SAD – like the usual adjective “sad,” but far more emphatic and usually with fangirly undertones (“David Tennant's getting married. SAD... Now I have no chance...”)

Shmeh – an exclamation used to express disgruntlement; interchangeable with “shmeble” and “shmah” (“Christmas is over. Shmeh.”); the positive counterparts are “shmee” and “shmeeple” (“It's July! Time to start playing Christmas music! Shmeeple!”)

The Thing – can also mean a variety of things; limited to nouns; often used in math; interchangeable with “Thingy” (“You basically make a giant thing...and you put it in a box.”)

These are the words I've been able to translate, and there are also a few phrases she often uses that, I believe, serve no other purpose besides making me question both her sanity and my parenting skills.

“Don't throw it! It's a book!” - I'd say this was good, normal, healthy advice if she hadn't, you know, hypocritically thrown a book at my throat that one time.

“Math is fun!!!” - Said with a concerning sort of glee.

“I'm a reindeer!!!” - Accompanied by wild, flapping hand motions. I don't even know.

In addition to all of these utterances, there is also The Laugh. I'm not entirely sure what it translates to besides something like “UBERLOL,” but I do know that it concerns me. Greatly.

And so, my friends, this is where Katie and I stand when it comes to understanding each other. As you can tell, we've got a lot of work to do, but I feel that with a little effort, we will one day both be bilingual in Katie-speak and normal, sane English. (And possibly in Hadley-speak...Katie, you could probably make one of these for me now that I think about it...I don't even register the weird crap I say anymore...maybe that's why we have such a language barrier).

Nerdfighters, thanks for reading me and Katie, I'll see you in math class. DFTBA