The Secret Lopangopagope of Seventh grade Girls
I was
never any good at foreign languages. In
High School I took Latin. Why they taught
a dead language I’ll never know. No one
speaks Latin, it’s DEAD! Well, I
was told if you wanted to be an engineer, a doctor or a lawyer you needed to
understand Latin.
Bull
dinky! Maybe you had to learn a few
Latin phrases, or words or terms, but learn to speak or read Latin? The guidance counselor in high school was
wrong! It was and is STUPID to learn
Latin. Might as well learn calculus to be able to drive a bus.
Anyway,
I was never any good at foreign languages.
I have never understood Spanish, German, Russian, or Woman. That’s right, women have their own language
that men have never understood. It is a complicated language where words have
different meaning depending on the time, or place it is used, or the body
language that accompanies it.
As much
trouble as I have understanding women, in junior high the girls, or the women
to be, spoke a language within their own secret Woman language.
The girls
spoke “OP.” I only remembered this language as recently on an old Carol Burnett
TV rerun, she was asked to speak “Op.” She ripped of a few sentences and Mrs. C
was flabbergasted.
“What the heck was that.”
“OP, you never learned OP?”
No, what was it?”
“It was a secret 13-year-old girl language where you put an ‘op’
before every vowel. My name, Joe, was Jop o op e.”
“Get out!”
“No, really, it was a thing.”
After some
research on the internet I learned that on “The Big Bang Theory” a popular TV
show, there was an episode where they spoke “Ubbi Dubbi” where they used “UB”
instead of “OP.”
I
remember those days when the girls would yack away in “OP” and we boys had no
idea what they were talking about. At some
point, even though we learned the method, we did not even try. It seemed only the girls could rattle on in “OP”
like it was their natural language, while we all had trouble with Pig Latin.
My ears
did perk up a bit when I heard the only word I understood, “J op o op e.”
Anyway,
that’s all I’ve got. I never understood “OP”
and I never understood why the girls spoke it, hell the boys didn’t even
understand the girls when they spoke “Woman.”
Another
skill I remember those 13 YO girls had, they could lip read. The girls could carry on a conversation
several rows over in class. The teacher
never knew it, and only the other girls knew what was being said.
All my
life I have been told by women, “You don’t listen!”
“Well Hell, why listen when I don’t speak your language?”
Stay
safe everyone, and
Wopash
yopoopur fopekopin hopands!
The only woman language I understand is the silent treatment. Oh ... and the sharp elbow in the ribs when I fall asleep during the sermon in church.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I'm a woman and I don't think I ever spoke this language as a teen :) I wish I had learned a 2nd language in school. Spanish would have been helpful in various places I've lived.
ReplyDeletebetty
It's been 42 years since I was required to speak Spanish (in high school) and I still remember a lot of the syntax; but SPEAKING it is one thing, understanding it is a completely different ballgame! As for Latin, I'm with Joe. As for Woman--haha! No comprendo su lengua!
ReplyDeleteNever learned OP, but i did learn Ubbi Dubbi, it was on the PBS TV show Zoom. Great show, and great fun to use the language, too.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have a secret language, but did use a few code words with friends that always had to do with hot guys.
ReplyDeleteWe women just like to talk in any language. We are also more social - because we talk.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have OP here. I could understand Ubbi Dubbi from Zoom, but it was not spoken here, either. I guess a lot of the 7th grade gals weren't watching PBS. Or maybe it was hard to speak these secret 7th grade girl languages around the corn-cob pipes clenched between our teeth...
ReplyDeleteYou probably wouldn't excel in hillbilly either :)
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of OP. I do remember being a 13 yr. old girl but maybe in Chicago we just spoke regular stuff...liKe: "Da Bears".
ReplyDeleteYou had me laughing! I grew up on an island on the coast of Maine. We spoke our own dialect called "down east".
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to say OP never made the rounds here in Australia, there's no way I could have learned or even understood it. There is an episode in The Big Bang Theory where Amy teaches OP to Penny. The boys used the Ubbi Dubbi.
ReplyDeleteHa ha... like that.
ReplyDeleteEven though I know four languages, apart from English, the rest are all Indian languages.
As for Latin, I had to learn all the prayers in Latin as I was the altar boy and the Mass was said in Latin (and so were the prayers)
My Mom was hell bend that I should be an altar boy so no escape from that. (this was in the early 60s)
The funny part was that one year after I became the altar boy they changed the prayers to English !!!!!!
As I sit here, resplendent in a pretty blue mask and matching gloves, I can honestly say I wish I could remember a few swear words. Hahahahahaha
ReplyDeletejust like you i am not good at languages
ReplyDeletewhen i was working in pharmaceutical company girls would use secret language and it was all about F i mean each word had lots of fs and i was surprised how they got each other
later i learnt how it works and it seemed easy but now again i forgot :(
Veni, vidi, vici that was all I remember from Latin. Never found a reason to use it till just now. Never heard of the OP and probably wouldn't have figured it out. I never learned Pig Latin nor could I do the Anna Anna Bo Banna name game either. Think I am lacking a gene.
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager in the 50's, we girls used "OB talk", not "OP". It was using OB before every sounded vowel. Drove our dates crazy. Even today as an adult my daughter and I can talk in public spaces and no one understands. OB seems easier than OP.
ReplyDelete