Monday's ABC Meme - The Letter G
When my daughter was about 14 she learned a secret way to communicate with her friends. The "language" is called Gibberish.
Webster defines gibberish as: "unintelligible or meaningless language".
I first heard her speak this way when I
I quickly figured out that she and her friends would speak Gibberish to each other when they wanted to have a private conversation in public. Or to be more precise, when they didn't want me to know what they were talking about. Okay, maybe I was taking it personally, but I don't think so.
It was amazing how fast she could speak this gibberish. I could not for the life of me figure out the code. I'm sure this was much to her delight.
Ahh, but that was before the Internet, WikiHow and YouTube.
Today, she would not have been able to get away with such gobbledegook. Or would she?
As I started to do the research on this subject, I found out that there are many versions of Gibberish. Each are slightly different and each are as confusing to me now as it was then.
Jen is a mother of two now. I imagine what she might worry about is much scarier than wondering what some secret language called gibberish is all about.
Twenty-five years ago I didn't have to worry about online predators, how much information she was or should be sharing on Facebook, making sure that when she Tweeted she was not revealing her location, or if what she was texting was appropriate.
As far as I know Jen and her friends don't speak Gibberish much anymore. Or at least she has not spoken it in front of me in a long time.
I suppose having our relationship develop from parent/child to adult/adult may have something to do with that.
I thought I would be clever here and end this with a special private gibberish note to Jen.
But for the life of me I still can't figure out the code, no matter which version of Gibberish it is.
ickclay erhay orfay ormay ABC ostspay.
Brilliant post! My friend and I used to write to each other in code, which worked well until we started misunderstanding each other, lol!
ReplyDeleteMy brother talks gibberish - but I think it is actually English, just spoken so quickly it is impossible to make out individual words!!!
ReplyDeleteDid your daughter & her friend actually understand each other?
ReplyDeleteMy sons just mumble! Very effective, lol
That is so cute!! I remember those days!
ReplyDeleteMy daughter doesn't seem to understand that there are some things she shouldn't share with me. So I almost wish she had spoken gibberish. LOL. But I guess I should be glad that I know she's not keeping anything from me.
ReplyDeleteLovely. All those things that we thought were so important and so secret all that time ago. As if nobody else could ever have possibly experienced it or understand.
ReplyDeleteI ishway I ouldcay peaksay igpay atinlay etterbay... I ovelay ademay up anguageslay.
ReplyDelete