Wopomopen Topopalk
a cranky re-run from February 2015
Women’s ability to communicate better than men’s is well known. Not necessarily with everyone, but certainly women to women. Their communication is often complicated and undecipherable by men. Women can speak volumes with a raised eyebrow, a voice tone change, shoulder shrugs and body posture. Men often miss non-verbal communication.
Men just use words.
Men just use words.
I remember in school the girls could all read lips. The boys would get in trouble talking in class while the girls would carry on conversations across the classroom without making a sound. Perhaps this is why women love soap operas where the characters all whisper; women don’t need to hear dialog, they can see it.
Sometimes women even invent their own language. They did this when I was in junior high school and they would talk circles around the boys. The girls would be giggling and making faces while we, the boys, had no idea what they were chattering about.
I’m pretty sure it was women who invented “Pig Latin.” Pig Latin was not too hard to figure out and the boys soon caught on.
Then the girls invented “OP.”
Even with knowing how OP worked, the girls spoke it so fast; the boys had no idea what they were saying.
In “OP,” you put an “op” before every vowel. My name, Joe, became Jopo-ope. I did learn my own name pretty quickly. If they were talking about Jopo-ope Hopagopy I earned to tune in, but the rest of any conversation was "OP" to me. If the girls even thought you might be catching on they switched to "EK" which was pretty much the same as "OP" only with EK.
Sometimes they would mix the two and that was ridiculous. I could not even recognize Jeko-ope Hopageky.
Mrs. C would say "Yop-o-eku opareke opa jekerk!"
Sometimes they would mix the two and that was ridiculous. I could not even recognize Jeko-ope Hopageky.
Mrs. C would say "Yop-o-eku opareke opa jekerk!"
There is a movie out about an indecipherable code the Nazis used in World War II. The code of nonsense letters was turned into words with a machine, the “Enigma” machine. I plan to go to this movie with Mrs. Cranky. I wonder if she will be able to figure out what the Nazis were saying before the geniuses in the movie crack the code.
OpI Wopo-opuld nopot bopet opagopaopinst opit.
(I would not bet against it.)
I've never understood that type of coded conversation, but I don't think I'm missing out on anything important.
ReplyDelete"Yop-o-eku opareke opa jekerk!" .. so, being a woman I'm supposed to know what that means? Hmmm, no way!
ReplyDeleteOh Boy....that sounds complicated to me. I'll stick with just plain old Canadian English with the odd grammer error thrown in for good measure.
ReplyDeleteOppish wasn't invented by the girls in your school. It has probably been around as long as pig latin which, I understand, goes back at least to Shakespeare's time. Females seem to be more adept with words which helps since they often need a defense against the physical strength of males. The battle of the sexes---guess that's always been part of life on this planet.
ReplyDeleteThank you for validating the existence of "Oppish" I was beginning to think it was just at my Jr. High School.
DeleteAnd where I grew up the girls simply talked openly and (in their minds) honestly about what they thought of you. In public, in private, in school and out of school. Worked well for the guys they liked ..... some of us, not so much but at least there was none of that "what's so funny?" to worry about. I guess.
ReplyDeleteNot getting into the girls-talk-more angle, that never ends well ;-)
I expected something a lot juicier about women talk. I remember pig Latin but not op.
ReplyDeleteThen there was Ubbie-Dubbie. Yes, i remember it, and practice made us very fast.
ReplyDeleteI remember that OP language. I never could get a hang of it. I could do Pig Latin pretty good, though. My friend and I made a language up...let me see if I can remember it....it's been years. Okay, yeah. It's like this: Hidaguy, howdagow aredagar youdagoo todagodaydagay? Idaguy amagam goodagood, thankagank youdagoo. (Hi, how are you today? I am good, thank you) -- and I don't even know how to explain it, really. But there it is.
ReplyDeleteJoe I have hard enough time with plain English and I do indeed remember the girls talking so fast that I couldn't keep up, even if they wern't talking code they lost me pretty quick.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It only takes an eyebrow or a side-eye. You guys have no idea what goes on over your head.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you as during my school i was surrounded by girls who invented their own language .
ReplyDeleteLater during my job in pharmaceutical company i was with hundreds of girls and women and i observed that they use special codes and language to communicate when specially they are talking about men or girls out of their group .
i too noticed that woman can communicate better than men but it's not that men are less in ability but they are more concerned to their other duties such as staring ,using non verbal languages to tease women etc.............
psyche behind this kind of women talk seems mostly a harmless way to communicate with each other main part of which is "having fun:
And over here it was back slang. Move the first letter of the word to the back and add "ay" (to rhyme with bay), so ackbay langsay.
ReplyDeleteYou lost me somewhere... I work with engineers. They say what they mean, in as few words as possible. God bless them. I love working with them.
ReplyDelete