![]() That means that lots of words have lots of phonemic overlap, particularly when spoken in a high-pitched, distorted voice which is then blared through a shitty speaker.Īdd to this the repetitive nature of most toy-speech. Junior picks up the Bratz doll and presses the button over and over and over again, which means you hear the same sound over and over and over again. There are around 40 distinct sound units (or phonemes) in English, give or take, but most linguists agree that a native adult speaker of English knows at least a few thousand English words, if not tens of thousands. This prepares us for part of our job as parents: we listen to the sounds our progeny glub out and, using this mechanism of matching acoustic information to lexical items in our mental dictionaries, we recognize patterns, reinforce them, and help teach our children how to speak. That’s a gross oversimplification of a very complex process that we don’t understand well, but the result is that our brains are hardwired to search for lexical pattern-matches in sounds that we think represent speech. Some of that play (“bababa” “mamama”) gains meaning when we use it and receive positive reinforcement for using it (“That’s right, I’m Mama! Mama! THE BABY SAID MY NAME, YAAAAY!”). We learn to speak by sorting and playing with the acoustic information that we hear–combinations of nasals, plosives, liquids, vowels, flaps, the whole phonemic megillah. None of these characters are speaking in a way that isn’t somehow affected.Īnd finally, our brains. Hannah Montana and the Bratz doll are both singing the Minions speak gibberish Nappy Time baby is a baby, fer chrissake, and so babbles. Even without the speakers, you can barely make out what he’s saying. Elmo’s speaking voice is distinctive: high, nasal, swallowed. Any sound nerd will tell you that if you put teeny, tiny cheap speakers in something and demand that they deliver flawless audio at a high enough volume that you can hear it, clear and crisp, through the body of a plushie, you will be foutu, mon ami. Kids’ toys do not generally use the highest quality audio equipment. In these particular cases, the physical limitations of technology combine with character quirks and the mental mechanisms we use to recognize words to produce a cavalcade of “fucks.”įirst, the technology. There are a number of reasons why we hear things that aren’t there. Zapf Creation, makers of the Nappy Time doll, bordered on outright disdain in their refutation–their statement read, in part, “With the aim of teaching young children about nappy changing, my little BABY born Nappy Time only makes ‘baby babble’ sounds and does not say any actual words.” In fact, you could waste hours meandering through YouTube listening to parents try to convince you that their child’s Rockin’ Elmo doll is saying “Elmo loves to fuck.” Manufacturers of each of these dolls have denied secretly programming them to destroy your child’s youth and innocence. Set aside, for a moment, the Lovecraftian horror that is a plastic baby doll whose sole function is to secrete and cry. Instead, listen to the first ten seconds of this video and focus on her happy babbling:ĭo you hear it, do you hear it? Parents claim that the baby is very clearly saying “fuck, fuck it.”ĭolls seem to be very enamored with the word “fuck.” Barbie has said it, Hannah Montana (the doll) has said it, one of the Bratz dolls sings it, and now the Minions. The My Little Baby Born Nappy Time doll is a plastic baby doll which will drink from a bottle, wet itself, cry until you change it, and then babble happily when it’s dry. Take the My Little Baby Born Nappy Time doll. These are more interesting cases because in most of them, the profanity is often only in the ear of the listener. More common, however, are the toys which seem to be swearing. Just about any toy with synthesized speech can be manipulated to swear, as this baby phone that cheerfully bleats “motherfucker” as you mash its buttons demonstrates. ![]() The toy in question says three phrases: “para la bukay,” “hahaha” and “eh eh.” Nonetheless, news channels have swooped in to investigate– in an FCC-approved way, of course. This has caused quite the uproar, with McDonald’s issuing a swift denial and coming clean with the “Minionese” (yes, really) transcript. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |