Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Yaya means something different

Despite our attempts to talk my mother-in-law out of the grandmotherly name of "Ya Ya", I think she is still going for it. You may recall that her husband, my husband, and myself have been trying to get her to go with something else. And just this past week I thought I'd been given the perfect end-all to above name. A friend had told me she'd seen a show on t.v where a female referred to a part of her body as her "ya ya". Tonight, hoping my husband would back me up on it, I shared with my mother-in-law the news and thought it would be the cure. But somewhere I must have miscommunicated with Geron because he didn't back me up as expected. In fact, he kind of let it slide off my tongue, onto the floor, under the rug, into the basement, and outside through a crack of cement never to be mentioned again. And in the meantime, someone at above lady's work told her that "Ya Ya" is greek for "grandmother". Well, thanks a lot, whoever you are. We're not greek, but my mother-in-law is converting.

I think I'm going to have a difficult time calling her "ya ya" with respect. So many positive words have been given such negative conitations these days. I find myself saying something and someone laughing when what I've said isn't even funny. Then, the person has to explain the new meaning of the word and I get quite embarassed. So, perhaps, I will continue calling her Patsy, as that is her name and what I've called her since I met her. Maybe the baby will pick up on that and call her "Pat Pat". I'd be much more comfortable with that, unless "pat pat" means something I don't know.

3 comments:

Scott said...

WARNING: This comment may end up being a little risque...

Okay, so a way I might remedy this is to start calling one of the following:

Teet-teet
Bra-Ma
Mam-Mam
Va-Va
Boo-boo
Hoo-Hoo

... you get the picture.

Jenn-Jenn, the Mother Hen said...

She certainly couldn't get upset for you calling her by her name...at least, one would think.

And maybe the baby would call her "Cee Cee", since your mother-in-law seems so fond of repeated phonetics.

But at least you're having a sense of humor about the whole thing!

Take care!

Jenn-Jenn, the Mother Hen said...

Oh, and I looked it up on Babelfish, and her friend is right - Ya Ya is Greek for grandmother, but it's spelled

γιαγιά

Okay, so I just had a total geek moment (and yes, I meant geek, not to be confused with Greek).