Saying Something Twice

Classical Nahuatl, the language spoken by the people we erroneously recall as Aztecs, achieves emphasis by means of something called reduplication wherein a morpheme is repeated. For example, where the adjectival prefix meaning old is hue—, something very old is therefore prefixed huehue—. Depending on the context, reduplication may also be used to denote the plural form, so that teotl - amounting to god - becomes gods when rendered as teteo, and ancient gods is huehueteteo. Reduplication can also be found in contemporary Texan speech. Although Texas was colonised by Spaniards ranging north from Mexico, and they bought a number of Nahuatl speakers with them, I'm not convinced that Texan reduplication is a direct continuation of some Nahuatl precedent. Nahuatl sounding place names are found all over northern Mexico, notably the state of Coahuila immediately south-west of San Antonio - although the etymology is often vague; and yet I've encountered reduplication mainly in Mexico and Texas. It's probably a coincidence, but it's nevertheless a suspicious coincidence; and because it irritates the living shit out of me, I've decided to compile a list.

Cow-cows. This was said by my stepson during a car journey as he attempted to draw attention to cattle gathered in a field which we were passing. The full sentence was, 'Look, Mom - cow-cows.' I don't recall how old he was at the time, possibly about nine. In any case, he seemed kind of long in the tooth for such an affectation. In his defence, he's presently about six months short of switching over to discussing animals exclusively by their Latin classification.

Dadad. see Momom.

Gus Gus. Another one from the boy, this time referring to a cat named Gus - short for Asparagus, a cat from a poem by T.S. Eliot. In full, the frequently repeated exclamation was usually, 'Look, Mom, it's Gus-Gus!' drawing attention to a cat who had, more often than not been sitting in the same place for at least an hour, and whose presence therefore scarcely required any sort of announcement, and certainly not one seemingly defining the speaker as the observational prodigy who has at last found the elusive cat for which the rest of us had been searching. To be fair, the boy has always been a little tightly wound, and his locating a cat which wasn't actually missing was probably less exhausting than the redundant greeting of hi, Mom! delivered roughly every fifteen minutes despite both parties having been in close proximity for at least the previous half hour.

Kia Kia. This was the signature call of a man dressed as a hamster in a television commercial for World Car Kia, an automotive dealership based in San Antonio specialising in vehicles produced by the Kia Corporation of South Korea. Television advertising for local car dealerships tends to be pure arseache by definition, but this one really pushed the boat out. The commercial features the usual amateur sales pitch gushing over stock footage of cars in the lot of the local showroom; then the image of a man dressed in a hamster costume zips across from the left side of the screen by agency of the sort of cheap CSO video effects no-one has used since 1989. The hamster is dressed as though having come direct from an eighties rap video with baseball cap and satin jacket, and quickly throws some kind of pose while saying Kia twice in a high pitched voice, then back off the left side of the screen - all over in a split second and lasting no longer than it takes to say Kia Kia! It's difficult to work out what the hell anyone thought this added to the already pointless commercial, perhaps an element of fun, given that some people can be entertained by a light bulb turning on and off or videos of babies falling over. I like to think that some fucking idiot in marketing imagined that naming this particular vehicle manufacturer twice in a squeaky voice would become a popular catchphrase echoed across playgrounds all over San Antonio, and I additionally like to imagine that said fucking idiot soon found himself back at the labour exchange, or whatever it is they have here. The commercial mysteriously vanished from our screens after about a week, so I know it wasn't just me.

Merry Merry. A particularly bewildering addition to the canon here, this was a Christmas specific greeting proposed by some relative or other as the first thing one should say upon meeting another person on Christmas morning; and, unless I'm getting my wires crossed - which I sort of hope might be the case - one responds to Merry Merry by saying Christmas Gift, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever and does little to increase the ambient seasonal jollity of the day so far as I'm able to tell. The person who came up with this greeted me with Merry Merry one year and more than anything I just felt embarrassed for her. It probably works better if you're five and have just formed a secret club of the kind which requires passwords.

Momom. Momom was my wife's grandmother, an obvious reduplication of Mom or mother serving to make a generational distinction. I always found the term, which was mostly informal and affectionate, a bit weird, and was told that it was just something my brother-in-law came out with one day. Although this may be true, I've now heard a number of Texans refer to grandparents as Momom and Dadad, so I guess it's actually a thing. Interestingly, my wife refers to her great grandmother as her great grandmother rather than Momomom, I suppose because it would eventually get ridiculous.

Pizza pizza. This is the call of a small cartoon Julius Ceasar who serves as mascot for the Little Caesar chain of pizza outlets. He's drawn as he would be had he escaped from a sixties Pink Panther cartoon. He carries a pike upon which is speared a slice of pizza, and he says the word pizza twice at the close of each advert in that voice we adopt when impersonating John Major or nerds. I guess it's supposed to be an earworm, a sort of audio meme, and it's almost certainly the inspiration for World Car Kia's mascot disaster; but, lacking the sort of explosive delivery which would suggest enthusiasm, it's just someone saying a word twice for no obvious reason. It perhaps doesn't help that I've never been tempted to try a Little Caesar pizza because they don't look massively appetising in the television commercial, and boasting about how cheap they are doesn't do the brand any favours.

Pop and dip, pop and dip. Because I can't be arsed to write it all out again, here's a direct lift from my facebook page about a year ago.

I'd like to open discussion regarding the current Popeyes' advertising campaign, expressed as two similarly themed but variant television commercials. The first features webcam footage of a woman who, so it is claimed, has been so moved by the quality of Popeyes' chicken that she's decided to sing about it. We then see the woman happily dipping a chicken nugget in a small pot of sauce of some description while saying pop and dip twice, presumably in reference to her actions. The second commercial shows a woman of possibly Polynesian ethnicity playing a ukulele while singing a couplet about how much she enjoys Popeyes' chicken. My objection is that the first woman, introduced as the author of a song, merely says pop and dip twice. My understanding of music theory is admittedly patchy, but saying something twice is not the same as singing a fucking song; while the woman in the second commercial is introduced as merely expressing her thoughts on Popeyes' chicken, thoughts which quite clearly take the form of an actual song with two lines, a time signature, a tune and so on and so forth. This shit keeps me awake at night.

Of course, pop and dip may be effectively considered a full sentence within the context of this list, and is therefore an example of idiocy rather than reduplication, but pəˈteɪtəʊ, pəˈtɑːtəʊ...

Ray Ray. I've never met the man. He's the nephew of a friend of my wife's aunt. His name is Rayfield, which sounds like a surname but isn't, and everyone refers to him as Ray Ray for reasons I will probably never understand. Should I ask about Ray, they know exactly who I mean and nevertheless refer to him as Ray Ray in the response. Recently I learned that Ray Ray has a son similarly named Ray, or possibly Ray Ray. I therefore fucking give up.

Yummy yummy snack snacks. My stepson habitually talks to himself - although this shouldn't be considered strange in and of itself - and this was what he said to himself one afternoon when looking for something to eat. He passed where I was working, heading down the hall towards the kitchen. I heard the pantry doors open and he then said, yummy yummy snack snacks, quite loudly. He was about thirteen years of age at the time. Even now, the memory of this incident causes me to frown so hard that I can carry pencils in the creases.

Zom-zoms. It's possibly unfair to dwell on vocal tics dating from when my stepson was more tightly wound and less verbally dextrous, but then life isn't fair and it's not like I made him say any of that shit. Back when he referred to cattle as cow-cows, and many years before he developed a taste for yummy yummy snack snacks, he had a thing about zombies. From what I can gather, the zombies he encountered were mostly in fairly innocuous video games or slightly edgy children's cartoons - more Phineas & Ferb than Night of the Living Dead. He was fascinated and yet terrified by the general concept. Stranger still was that he was genuinely star struck when meeting Charlie Adlard, artist of Image's Walking Dead comic book whom I've known since we were at college together, although I'm not sure he'd actually read an issue of the comic book; and yet even at that age - thirteen, maybe fourteen - he'd get pissy if any of us said the z-word, thus apparently reminding him of the source of his combined terror and fascination, and to whom he would indirectly refer as zom-zoms because apparently that defused some of the fear he felt regarding this thing which doesn't actually exist.