Cooties
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cooties is a word in North American English, used by children, referring to a fictitious disease or condition, often infecting members of the opposite sex.[1] One catches cooties through any form of bodily contact, close proximity, contact with an infected person's possessions, or third-party transmission. In prepubescent children, it serves as a device for enforcing separation of the sexes.
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[edit] Etymology
The adoption of the term into English traces back to the American occupation of the Philippines, in 1898-1945, and before that to British soldiers' presence in Malaysia. In most Austronesian languages (e.g. Malaysian and many Philippine languages such as Tagalog included) the term for head lice, lice or fleas of any kind, etc., is "kuto"; foreign troops had ample opportunity to become familiar with the term and made a slang pluralized form ("cooties") of "kuto." How the term subsequently entered the vocabulary of grade school children is unknown.
From its original meaning of head or body lice, the term evolved into a purely imaginary stand-in for anything that is considered repulsive. In British English the term lurgy may be used in the same context. However, lurgy has a broader definition and the two concepts are not equivalent. In Great Britain the term mange in some places serves a similar purpose, broadly being a contactable virus that passes through touch or association with an 'infected' person. There are no actual symptoms of "mange" or outwardly visible signs. In south Wales the term scabs is used. In northern Europe, "cooties" exists but only suggests that the "disease" is found in girls. In Sweden the phenomenon is called "tjejbaciller"[2] (literally "girl bacillus") and in Denmark it is known as "pigelus" (literally "girl lice").
[edit] The "cootie catcher"
Made of folded paper, the "cootie catcher" is one name for a popular hand held toy among school children. One surface is blank, the other drawn with dots. The joke is to show the blank side, then run the toy through someone's hair, revealing the dotted surface. It is made so each surface looks the same apart from the "cooties". The toy is also also called a "fortune teller" and used in play to tell fortunes.
[edit] The "cooties shot"
Children sometimes "immunize" each other from cooties by administering a "cootie shot." One child typically administers the "shot" by reciting the rhyme "circle, circle / dot, dot / now you've got the cootie shot" while using an index finger to trace the circles and dots on another child's forearm. Yet another variation of the cootie shot is "circle, circle / square, square / now you have it everywhere," in which a child expecting an immunization is connived by a friend into being infected with cooties throughout his or her body. A final shot is said "circle, circle/ knife, knife / now you've got it all your life" while using their index finger to draw vertical lines on the other child's forearm. Sometimes a "cooties shot" is actually just a punch to the upper arm which "cures" the punched one from the "disease".
[edit] Cooties in popular culture
As with any cultural convention, or fondly remembered concept from childhood, cooties are often referenced in movies, music, on television, in novels and on the Internet. References range from physical manifestation as fantastical creatures to more realistic portrayal as a cultural convention and to the traditional interpretation as lice.
[edit] As spoof of a sexually transmitted disease
- "Cooties" is a spoof created by the Peoples Improv Theater that follows closely the style of a public service announcement intended to raise awareness about sexually transmitted diseases. The popular video was created by the Viral Video class at the Peoples Improv Theater taught by James Murray. The sketch has generated over a million plays on YouTube, and won the "Best Comedy Video of 2007" on Yahoo. "Cooties" was produced and directed by James Murray and written by Ryan Harrison.
[edit] Television
- Cooties have been referred to in a number of episodes of The Simpsons. In one episode ("Homer: Bad Man") Bart claims they come from "a girl's butt" and in "The Wandering Juvie" Bart is told by Gina that there is no such thing as cooties (as well as a variety of fake "cootie-repelling" type items such as cootie insurance, which Bart appears to have bought). In another episode, "Tennis the Menace", Homer asks a Cootie Catcher "Do I have cooties?" He then opens a tab and reads "No." followed by "Wow this home testing kit has saved me a fortune!" There is also an episode in The Simpsons where Bart gives Milhouse his cootie shot by punching him.
- Cooties is also mentioned in a Friends episode, during season 5, when Joey referred to Rachel as having the cooties because Ross was selling all of his belongings which Rachel may have touched or come in contact with.
- Cooties feature in the 1990s television series Dexter's Laboratory, as small, girly insects with curly snouts that inhabit the bedroom of Dexter's older sister, Dee Dee.
- In one of the episodes of Codename: Kids Next Door, where the KND scientists believed that their underwater science lab is quarantined because of cooties.
- In the Bobby's World episode "Cooties", kids start avoiding Bobby, believing he contracted cooties when he was kissed by Jackie.
- On an episode of the Cartoon Network program Cow & Chicken, Chicken was kissed by a girl named Whiney. This leads everybody to believe that Chicken has a particularly lethal strain of cooties known as "Whiney Cooties". Symptoms included his beak falling down, his butt dissolving, his eyeballs popping out of his head, and his beak shriveling.
- In one episode of the Cartoon Network program The Powerpuff Girls, cooties were featured prominently, since at first, they are the main weakness of the Rowdyruff Boys, as they explode when the Girls kiss them in order to defeat them. However, later on, when he resurrects them, they are given anti-cootie vaccinations to make them immune to the Girls' kisses.
- The MTV2 show Wonder Showzen featured an episode called "health" where a character called Wordsworth comes down with a case of the cooties; his friend Him uses it to his advantage and sells Wordsworth's encrusted cootie sores as snack treats.
- One of the supposed cures "Circle Circle Dot Dot" is a song by Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone that was featured on their MTV show Blowin' Up. The song references cooties.
- Cooties are mentioned on various episodes of Monk. In episode three of season three, "Mr. Monk and the Black Out", Monk refuses to let an attractive woman kiss him because she might have cooties. In the episode "Mr. Monk and the Big Game", episode three of season five, Monk states that "the jury is still out on cooties", and bemoans the lack of funding for research.
[edit] Movies
- In the 1994 Hollywood hit, Pulp Fiction, cooties are mentioned in the context of sharing a drinking straw.
- In the 2006 movie, ATL, cooties are also mentioned when sharing a can of coke.
- Irwin catches cooties and mono from kissing Mandy in Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure.
- In the movie Grease cooties are mentioned when Jan passes the bottle of wine to Sandy.
- In the 2007 movie Hairspray the song called Cooties is performed in the credits by Aimee Allen.
- In the 2008 movie Speed Racer Spritle, Speed's kid brother, says "cootie shot" after seeing Trixie and Speed about to kiss.
[edit] Literature
- Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, does not seem to worry about catching cooties from close contact with individuals. However, he fears that he will catch them when he is the only boy on a playground full of girls. Apparently, he believes that they are received from airborne transmission, as he begins breathing through his shirt and shouting "Air filter! Air filter!” In the same strip, Susie Derkins, one of the secondary characters who Calvin is with at the time, assures him that "Stupidity produces antibodies." Cooties are also mentioned when Hobbes is explaining that being in love means that when you see the object of your affection; your heart crushes your innards, makes you sweat, shorts the circuits to the brain and makes you babble like a cretin. As Calvin hears this, he says that happened to him once, but that he thought that it was the cooties.
- Cooties are mentioned as lice in a child's hair in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
[edit] Music
- "Cooties" was also one of the competitive song and dance numbers in the Broadway Musical, Hairspray. It was sung by Amber announcing that her rival Tracy Turnblad has cooties. The song incorporates "Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot, Dot" as a dance move. In the motion picture, the song is sung by jazz vocalist Aimee Allen in the background of the dance-off in one of the final scenes, and is not sung by the character Amber.
- Name of a Columbia, Missouri band known as the Cootie Shot Scandal.[citation needed]
- Kooties is also a funk rock band from Australia[citation needed]
- Frank Zappa - Dinah-Moe Humm: "So I pulled on her hair, Got her legs in the air, An' asked if she had, any cooties on there..."
- *Cootie Shot is a punk band based in northeast Pennsylvania.[citation needed]
- Circle Circle Dot Dot - Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.jstor.org/pss/1499801
- ^ http://appserv.cs.chalmers.se/users/peterlj/runtime05/projects/hugnplay/doc/Projektrapport.pdf p. 10
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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