Date:  Fri, 12 Apr 1996 08:58:34 EDT

From:  Larry Horn <LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU>

Subject: Re: childhood terms



Rima asks,



>>"chocolate squirrel ice cream" while with adult (or in my

>>case teenage) companions--or counting time in "Batmans,"



>OK, I give up. What means "chocolate squirrel ice cream" or "Batmans"?



I can answer that one, although it wasn't my own childhood. The former is

kidspeak for 'chocolate swirl', i.e. vanilla injected with a vein of chocolate/

fudge. The latter refers to the use of television shows to measure time for

kids who know how long a given show lasts but haven't yet mastered the abstract

concept of 'half-hour' or 'hour'. For our kids it would have been two

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and now it's probably Power Rangers. Sort of

prisoners' use of cigarettes as medium of exchange.



Larry