And I’m like Baby, Baby, Baby

Dear Mum,

I am a grumpy young woman.

Can you really blame me? January is like a rich tea biscuit dunked in a brew – limp, soggy, and lacking the varied texture of a hob nob or a choc chip cookie. Somehow commuting in January is worse than commuting in any other month.

Before you remind me of my New Year’s resolutions, I’ve been very good and controlled myself by refraining from rolling my eyes at noisy and space-hogging commuters.

Yet one cannot help but listen in on telephone conversations on a train. One is very much privy to the private lives discussed during telephone conversations in the confines of a train carriage.

On one late commute home, for example, a young teenage girl sitting across the aisle from me told her friend on the dog and bone, mid conversation, “Oh, by the way, I got my first period at the weekend.”

Woahhhhhhhh!! Not cool train talk, my naive friend. Excuse me while I throw you a disgusted of Tunbridge Wells look and change carriages.

What is really bothering me is phone conversations between lovers.  (Yes, I can feel the stirrings of an anti Valentine’s Day blog already). And even more irritating, the pet names used over the blower.

Pet names are a tricky thing. I fully understand there are moments when a lover finds their partner’s name is not enough. Moments of poignancy, total infatuation, and excitement – these moments often require a more lyrical or emotionally weighted term of address that seals the moment and binds these two people in their affection.

‘Baby’ is not one. ‘Baby’ makes me want to slap the phone out of the commuter’s hand or pull the emergency alarm so that they’d have to abandon their conversation, unable to hear one another over the driver’s announcements and alarm siren. Or simply chunder into my handbag.

Perhaps part of my issue with ‘baby’ is that Kate calls me this. This is because I’m the baby of the family, like ‘baby’ from ‘Dirty Dancing’. Kate also fulfils the older sister stereotype of being motherly and protective and therefore the nickname ‘baby’ fits.

(It is, however, very ironic that my friends call me ‘Luce’ which has connotations that absolutely contradict the innocence of ‘baby’. I emphasises the word connotations - this is not a nicknamed gained from certain behaviour. End of.).

Due to this familial relationship, this term of phrase is endearing, sensitive and logical because I’m the youngest and consequently the least experienced.

A guy calling his girlfriend this, or vice versa, is rather patronising. And due to its referencing the most innocent of humans, it’s also a bit pervy, unlike in a family where ‘baby’ is naturally part of that dynamic.

Using this pet name in a relationship is dangerous – it implies one partner is dependent upon the other, like a baby is upon its mother and, in my case, sister.

Furthermore, in recent years this word is most used in a Justin Bieber song, which heads this blog. Who wants to think of 17 year old, baby-faced Biebs when their lover rings them? “And I’m like baby, baby, baby - NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Which brings me to the three shortened versions of this pet name – ‘babe,’ ‘babes’ and ‘bubba.’

Firstly, ‘babe.’ This is a hideous word that calls to mind a baby pig, thus once more referencing an innocent as well as a farmyard animal. How charmingly romantic.

‘Babe’ equals a bad word.

‘Babes’ is only acceptable when used either ironically or between girlfriends. Pippa affectionately calls me ‘babes.’ I call female friends ‘babes’ when they’re complaining about something petty. “Oh, Babes, your boyfriend only put 5 kisses at the end of that text rather than the normal 8? Bastard!”

I shun those I hear on trains cooing this word down the phone.

And, finally, ‘bubba,’ wrong on so many levels.

Firstly, this is not a shortening – it has exactly the same number of syllables as ‘baby.’

Secondly, this is not a real word.  Just like ‘snufflelump’ and ‘cootchy-cootchy’ aren’t words. If you overheard a woman gushing into her Nokia ‘I can’t wait to see you tonight, Mr Rinky-tinky-pinky” you would think “That is not cool”. The same can be said for ‘bubba.’

Thirdly, it reminds one of Hubba Bubba chewing gum or Bubba Gump shrimp. Neither of these foodstuffs are aphrodisiacs.

And, finally, ‘bubba’ sounds like ‘hubba hubba’ which has never worked as a successful chat-up line or sexually excited sound effect.

Ergo, ‘baby’ and its entire vocab offspring should be forbidden.

‘Baby’ is not alone, however. ‘Dear’ will never be the same after Michael Winner told a woman to calm down. It is now a condescending word that puts any man that uses it when addressing a woman at a disadvantage because it suggests he is abusing his position as a male to exercise his Patriarchal power. Thanks, Michael.

‘Darling,’ now makes one think of Craig Revel-Horwood extending all of his vowels. “Daahling that chaaa chhaaa chhhhhaaaaaa was ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaastly!!”

And “precious” or “my precious” echoes a possessive hobbit sub-human panting over a cursed bit of bling.

To conclude, objective pet names which list inhuman, non possessive objects are A-Okay to use, specifically, ‘petal’, ‘sweetie,’ ‘sweetheart,’ ‘honey,’ ‘poopsey’ (jokes!) and ‘sweetcheeks.’

But baby has officially been put in the corner.