Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-08
THE TOPICAL TALKER.
Baby Talk and Stuttering-A Doctors Call
ing-Dieting on New PIan-And Re-
marks of Frivoloun Order.

Baby Talk and Stuttering-A Doctors Call
ing-Dietiug on a New PIan-And Re-
marks of n Frivolous Order.
BABY talk, the pretty pigeon English of the
nursery, the language of verbal distortions
which is supposed to convey intelligence to the
infant mind, is declared by famous English
physician to be one of the principal causes Of
suffering and other impediments of speech.
The parent who says to q confiding baby:
Diddy-iddy-iddy-iddy's toosey-oosey hurt oose
ickle-ickle gum-gums," deliberately sows the
seed of suffering, perhaps, but it is very doubt
full if any parent and especially any mother,
will eschew baby talk on that account.
The custom of treating baby to these lin
guistic idiocies is too old to be battered down
by single-surely he is unmarried-physician
in day. 1 have heard of men and of one
woman protesting against the use of baby talk
on the most sensible grounds-before they had
babies of their own to practice upon. have
even heard a father reprove his wife for deliv-
ering addresses to the 2-year-old in language
which might have been Choetaw, and ten min
utes later himself spout yard or two of still
worse farrago to the young hopeful.
You might as well start out to convince a
mother that her baby was not very superior to
any previous example of the genus as to at
tempt to abolish baby talk.
tionate parents, however, if it affords them any
consolation,
A SHARP ring at the doorbell. It is o'clock
in the morning. One of the physicians proud
est privileges is that his working day never
ends. So DR.. B. slips from the warm bed to
the cold floor, gathers enough clothing to make
himself barely presentable, and goes down.
stairs The door is opened. letting in a fine
sample of March wind in its nightclothes, and
a rather confused young man on the doorstep
says: Can you tell me where DR.. G-'s of.
fee is?'
DR., G. isa practitioner of the homeopathic
school, while DR.. B. is an allopath. Yet Dr.
B gives the desired information, and shuts
the door-one might say with slam, AS he
goes upstairs few words of a profane tenden-
cy escape him.
Was DR.. B. justified in swearingG
#x&
SOME men are fond of dieting themselves as
a cure or preventive of some evil physical hu-
NOR or disposition.
encountered one day or two ago. He was
fearful lest he should grow too stout Prox-
unity to the 2OGpound mark perturbed him.
Said he: II shall eat no lunch in future"
For one consecutive day he tied fast to the
resolve. The results of abstinence were not
happy. The next day saw him at the usual
place eating light lunch of ham, a quaint lit
tie variety of the cabbage plant called Brussels
sprouts, scallops, bread and butter and Coffee
And when somebody reproached him for the
Inconsistency, and rehearsed the bill of fare
above mentioned, adding to it potatoes, he ex-
claimed with superb indignation: That's Just
like you, to exaggerated ate no potatoes, sitl
Not one!'
Now will the CHEEKY poet man
Espy the signs of spring;
Note ev'ry robin in the van.
And catch in everything
The promise of brighter sky,
And thin.,s a trife chestnuttyI
**#
BINGs-Peterson Wages is pretty sure of
getting consulate in Scotland.
Springs-Is that so? didn't know Wages
had any influence.
Bings-He hasn't any, but he has written
three Scotch dialect poems and he is at work
on novel called "The Pibroch Gangs Awa',"
and the Scots declare they'll have Wages or
war!
AN enthusiastic Republican has written The
DISPATCH long letter, in which he conclu-
sively proves that none of the members of the
new Cabinet are for sale.
But he will not deny that the very day after
the Cabinet was confirmed as whole by the
Senate it was Lent,