Talk:babby

Etymology

A word misspelled so often that it started being used to make fun of stupid questions, particularly those with poor spelling, on web forums.

External Reference

http://www.somethingawful.com/flash/shmorky/babby.swf

It's real

I've seen 'babby' in old literature ... definitely not just a misspelling. But yes, I'm familiar with the Internet meme as well (as of today). Soap 00:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

e.g. Sean O'Faolain's The Trout uses "cry babby" at one point. Soap 17:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Btw, one version of the internet meme goes like this: Yes, but...how is babby formed? (Probably satire and parody of little kids' questions.) OjdvQ9fNJWl (talk) 20:07, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The pronunciation /bæbɪ/ exists in Yorkshire as a colloquial variant, so I assume when it's written it's spelled babby, not baby. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:11, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Regional distribution

Checking three volumes of the old English Dialect Dictionary, I see examples from Ayr[shire] (2), Cumberland, Derbyshire, Devonshire (4), Gloucestershire, Lakeland, Lancashire (4), Leicestershire (3), n. Lincolnshire (2) and s. Lincolnshire, Northumberland, the Orkney Islands, Pem[brokeshire?], Shropshire (3), Somersetshire, s. Staffordshire (2), Warwickshire, Worcestershire, n. Yorkshire and w. Yorkshire (4), and possibly other places. The entry on babby itself notes "BABBY, sb. In gen. dial, use in all the n. counties to Der. Also in War. Wor. Hrf. Glo. Dev. Cor. [...] A baby." - -sche (discuss) 04:26, 30 August 2018 (UTC)