Jabberwocky: Daddy!
Dad-shave it, this month we do some multi-dadding.
by Mark Peters
January 25, 2008
Though they lag behind "Mommy" and "cookie," "Dad" and "Daddy" easily rank in the top ten most common words of childhood. "Father" has a huger, more respectable package of terms that I'm going to ignore right now, but don't think "Dad" and "Daddy" have no pedigree: the Oxford English Dictionary says "dad" goes back to about the fifteenth century, long before NASCAR dads, big daddies and daddy wagons roamed the earth (though there were probably some daddy longlegs slinking around). The exact origin isn't known, but "dada" means "papa" in many languages, so "dad" may just be one of those sounds people can't escape in any zip code, like car alarms and flatulence.
We're all familiar with deadbeat dads and baby daddies — both are as plentiful in print as they are slippery in real life — but many dad-ish terms are a little under-the-radar. Here's the scoop on a few old and new dad-related terms:
flat daddy
New wars mean new words: so far, the Iraq war has added "fobbit" (someone stationed in the sorta-safe confines of a forward operating base), "Mortaritaville" (a much-bombed base), and "Pope glass" (makeshift vehicle protection), among other terms. On the home front, there's "flat daddy," which The Word Spy's Paul McFedreis defines as: "An enlarged, usually life-sized photograph of a deployed soldier, used to comfort that soldier's children, spouse, or relatives." I can't imagine what it's like to have a parent away at war, but this is one attempt at comfort that seems to fall a bit . . . flat? Decide for yourself: the site's here.
you fine gone daddy you
In the slang associated with jazz music in the twenties, "dad" and "daddy" picked up several lover-ish meanings (like "sugar daddy") while also becoming "dude"-like in meaning. In On the Road, Jack Kerouac immortalizes a colorful use: ". . . I think you can manage, you fine gone daddy you" (1957), and this 1966 quote may be one of the OED's bizarrest citations: "Altoist Bruce Turner . . . even called his wife 'dad'." So far, any correlation between liberal use of "dad" and jazzman divorces is unsubstantiated. Dads everywhere should be happy to know there's a long history of using "dad" as a euphemism for "God."
daddyball
A message board comment by G. Jones defines this nepotism-tastic term pretty well: "'Daddyball' is killing us. Most of the kids know that the coach's kid gets to play wherever he wants to, doesn't have to sit out, and unless he is a complete klutz, is a lock for the all-star team." "Daddyball" is at least as old as 1999, and seems a good fit for any situation involving members of the lucky sperm club, even if no balls are involved.
multi-dadding
I was surprised to find that "multitasking" dates back to 1966: it caught on in the last decade as the internet, cell phones and easily affordable robot armies made our lives more complex, but it was originally used to describe things that computers, not people, were doing. "Multi-dadding," a word spread by this Guardian article, describes the mega-complicated lives of women with several children, two or more fathers of those children, and — innocent bystanders would presume — two or more ulcers.
dad-shave it!
Dads everywhere should be happy to know there's a long history of using "dad" as a euphemism for "God." I was familiar with "dad-blamed" and "dad-blasted," but The Historical Dictionary of American Slang also lists examples of "dad-bing," "dad-bloom," "dad-burn," "dad-fetch," "dad-gast," "dad-gum," "dad-rat," "dad-shave," "dad-shim," and "dad-swamp," all with similar god-dammit-ish meanings.
So if you're tired of taking the Lord's name in vain with common expressions such as "Christ on a crouton!" and "By the hammer of Thor!" . . . dad-swamp it, now you have options.
Do you know any rare or neato dad-related terms? Let us know in comments.
©2008 Mark Peters and Nerve Media
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