Cooties

For other uses, see Cootie.

Cooties is a word in North American English used by children for an imaginary disease or condition perceived to infect others, particularly members of the opposite sex. One catches cooties through any form of bodily contact, proximity, or touching an infected person's possessions. The phase typically passes by age 5-9.

Etymology

Supposedly, the earliest recorded use is in Albert N. Depew's World War I memoir, Gunner Depew (1918), published in 1918: "Of course you know what the word "cooties" means....When you get near the trenches you get a course in the natural history of bugs, lice, rats and every kind of pest that had ever been invented." The word may be derived from the Filipino kuto, literally head lice.

However this is wrong. Cassidy and Hall were likely unaware of the memoir "Outwitting the Hun -- My Escape from a German Prison Camp" by Lieut. Pat O'Brien of the Royal Flying Corps, who was an American flying for the British in the Great War. This memoir, dated January 14th, 1918, was published in March, of that year, which implies prior useage, since he left the USA in May, 1917. O'Brien refers in that work to "cooties," meaning body lice, which in his case had been caught in the prison camp in Courtrai. Lice were of course rife in the trenches on both sides of the conflict, and highly contagious.

From its original meaning of head or body lice, the term evolved into a purely imaginary stand-in for anything repulsive.

Other terms for the condition

Cooties are known in Denmark as "pigelus" (literally "girl lice") and "drengelus" ("boy lice"), and in Norway "jentelus" ("girl lice) and "guttelus" ("boy lice"). In Sweden and Finland they are more prevalent in girls, where they are known as tjejbaciller" (literally "girl bacillus") and "tyttöbakteeri" ("girl bacteria") respectively.

In Great Britain "girl germs" and "boy germs" are also commonly used, as is mange. In south Wales the form is "scabs", and in Scotland "feechs".

Treatment

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. Continuing, a child may then say "circle, circle / square, square / now you have it everywhere," in which case the child receives an immunization 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 simply "cures" the punched one from the "disease".

The Cooties Lock

In Canada, there is a slight variation on the cooties shot known as the "cooties lock", which goes "circle, circle / dot, dot / now you've got the cootie lock". The "lock" is deemed official once the child's right thumb and forefinger are touching while interlocking with the left thumb and forefinger from the left hand. The formation often resembles a figure eight. Canadian children acknowledge there is very little that can be done to infect a friend with cooties if he/she has the "cootie lock" effectively in place.

Cooties Spray

By the 1980's, U.S. children had developed an imaginary aerosol cooties treatment where a "spray" is administered over the entire body in conjunction with the sound effect "tshhhhhhhhhh!". While the spray is sometimes self-administered immediately after coming in contact with the cooties, most children claim only when applied by another child is the treatment effective.

See also

• List of fictional diseases
• Sex education
• Gender studies
• Gender identity
• Sex segregation

External links

• Tregear E., "The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary," Lyon and Blair, Wellington, NZ (1891) http://books.google.com/books?id=wvIlAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA187&dq=KUTU
• Origin of "cooties" from The Straight Dope