Cubby--girlfriend/boyfriend (for pre-schoolers)

[David Bowie]

Automatic digest processor wrote:
From:    Gerald Cohen <gcohen at UMR.EDU>

:         One of my students encountered the term "cubby" (= boyfriend
: or girlfriend) from a teacher at her son's preschool. Below my
: signoff is my student's account.  Is anyone in ads-l familiar with
: this term?

<snip account>

I haven't heard cubby, but my 3yo and nearly-5yo daughters report a
distinction between boyfriend/girlfriend and kissyboy/kissygirl. Kissing
doesn't seem to be involved with either of them, and b/gfriend seems to be
more serious, at least in that you actually *talk* to the person and tell
them you like them repeatedly, while b/gfriend appears to involve agreeing
that you like each other and then ignoring each other.

I remember reading a thing in some anthropological journal 7 or 8 years ago
that pled for researchers to start working on the cultural anthropology of
children. It seems to me that someone could do something decent on the
*linguistic* anthropology side just with children's "romantic" friendship
terms.

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.