Talk:Cooties/Archive 1

Archive 1

Coot

This stuff at the beginning about "Coot" in 1600's england appears to be entirely false. I can find no references to the disease, and the only plagues in Bristol in the 1600's was an outbreak of the Black Plague from 1602-1604. Also, I'm unsure if the population of Bristol was even that large in 1600. It was only 25000 in 1700 (the nearest year I could find.) The referenced page at the bottom of the article explains the Malay origin of the word.

Etymology Section Contradicts Itself

In the Etymology section, it begins by saying the first recorded use was from a memoir in 1918. Only sentences later, it claims there was a recorded "humorous" use from 1905. Something is wrong here... --jp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.183.217.123 (talk) 14:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Injection, injection

"Injection, injection, can't get infection!"

Alternative lyrics to your "cooties shot" from the UK as an antidote to "boy germs"- though cannot find much to back it up! This is used in the playground with the accompanying index finger jab in the arm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ficklefiend (talk • contribs) 19:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

==Lyrics

"A different cure is to circle the index finger over the arm or hand, and then act as if stabbing the middle of the circle with a knife whilst saying "Circle, circle, knife, knife; now I have my Cootie shot for life."" -> I remember the playground chant, but I can't imagine anyone, especialy children "stabbing [their arm] with a knife whilst saying [it]"... i've removed, since there is reference to the lyric on the 'circle circle dot dot' page.

Thesis

What has the Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization done to prevent or at least monitor the spread of cooties during the 1980s and 1990s? I'm doing a thesis for my doctorate degree and this would be very helpful to back up my theories with reliable statistics. --69.234.200.96 07:08, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hee hee, now there's some good research goin' on.

Seriously, I'm suspicious of the speculation about the link between "cooties" and the belief that sex with a virgin cures AIDS. Most likely they're vaguely similar concepts that came up independently. As stated here it sounds bogus to me, and it's unreferenced, so I'm removing that nonsense. CDC (talk) 8 July 2005 22:28 (UTC)

LOL, this topics hilarious -gogreen11

Dilbert

Cooties did not appear on the Sept 24th, 2005 Dilbert Desk Calendar. An image of that calendar day is at this URL: http://www.uer.ca/me/pub/2005-08-24.jpg

image text issue

"An artist's fanciful depiction of a cootie" is actually incorrect, if you mean cooties in general. This is a rendering of the Milton Bradley Cootie game toy. --Markzero 05:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

It can stay for the moment, that probably is teh visual representation of cooties to a kid. Patcat88 04:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Abstinence is no proof against infection

The only true protection from cooties, as every child knows, is completely avoiding the opposite sex.

Cooties are generally contagious, so you don't have to actually be in contact with the opposite gender. You can catch cooties from items like pencils or chairs, or from traitorous members of your own gender who do engage in contact with nonmembers. To claim otherwise is dangerous. This is why you need elaborate cleansing rituals, should nonmembers ever visit your clubhouse. --Markzero 11:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

STD?

Is cooties a (fictional) sexually transmitted disease? Should it be in Category:Sexually-transmitted diseases? —Ashley Y 08:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I was bold and added it. —Ashley Y 08:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, interestingly enough, one colloquial expression for a vagina is "cooter." So I would speculate that they're pubic lice. --Markzero 12:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Cooties, in the sense you speak of, is not an STD; you can't catch it from having sex, only from a sex, ie girls. Serendipodous 20:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes when you have sex, you're close enough to catch cooties. --Markzero 12:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Only sometimes? --Ben Culture (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't responding to your very interesting point (though I think cooties were originally headlice, not pubic lice), but to the original poster.Serendipodous 17:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

It's only an STD in the sense that the common cold is an STD if you catch it from somebody while having sex with them. In other words, it's not. --Ben Culture (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with the article

I think the article is very misleading. From what I understand, it's not at all equivalent to "the lurgy". And while it may have derived from some kind of lice disease, that's not the general understanding of the word.

The current text indicates it's considered to be a disease, and that's just too strong. Children do not consider it to be a disease. That would be like saying that children consider playing cops and robbers to be lethal because you shoot each other.

The word "cooties" is used by children to indicate an imaginary germ as the reason for avoiding or teasing another child. It is often associated with the game tag, in which either a single child has cooties and passes them to other children by touching them, or in variations such as one where all girls have cooties, and they chase the boys. It is more common for girls to be the source of cooties, though it can be applied to either sex.

I removed the "tone" tag

I fail to see how an article about cooties could possibly maintain a formal tone throughout and still be taken seriously. What do you want? A statistical analysis of infection rates? Serendipodous 09:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

The article can be about a jk (cooties), but nothing stops it from sounding professional and encyclopedic, a observer point of view, and agreement of the majority of facts about cooties should be fine.Patcat88 04:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Fortune Teller

A Fortune Teller as used by British schoolchildren, although folded the same way is not the same as the Cootie Catcher described in the article and is not used the same way. UK Fortune Teller. Rentwa 16:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be some discrepancy, too, between the article Cootie Catcher and the description here. Rentwa 16:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, also I have never heard the toy mentioned in the Cootie Catcher article referred to as a cootie catcher(I grew up in the Northeast USA)WacoJacko 05:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Disease, condition or infestation?

I am not convinced that the lead sentence in this article, which defines cooties as a disease is accurate.

In the USA Pacific Northwest, where I became familiar with cooties, the condition of having cooties was definitely an infestation, perhaps parasitic, in which the large but invisible vermin could move under their own volition short distances. Also, they could survive for a short while on a chair, swing, or sofa if they happened to crawl off their host while she was seated, making such seats unsafe for a short period of time after they had been occupied by a person suspected of having this condition.

Furthermore, I am pleased to report that, in the region of my childhood, despite the danger of infestation to both sexes, only girls were ever noted to actually having been infested. Unfortunately, both the infection rate and recidivism rate were tragically high. dpotter 15:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Good question. But a chronic infestation can be classified as a disease, I think. Also, in response to your claim that only girls were noted to be infested in the place of your childhood abode, it's quite possible the region was inhabited by a strain of cootie that is immediately lethal to boys, and hence you never saw any live boy so afflicted. (I have heard rumors that such a strain existed in oral histories, but have never personally come across it, until, possibly, now) The fact that girls could survive infestation would potentially lead to them acting as carriers on the order of Typhoid Mary, which is another specificity or limitation of effect that, to my knowledge, we find attributable only to diseases. --Markzero 08:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed cootie image

I removed Image:Cootie001.jpg from this article. Proper fair use would be in an article about the game itself, not in a general cootie article. howcheng {chat} 21:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Um... what?

"Cooties is a fictional disease and a slang word used primarily by North American children to refer to a highly along gender lines" - what is that supposed to mean?

Second paragraph: ...it can be speculated that the imaginary disease was hggvygvgv from reference to how tofuti cuties...

hggvygvgv? Excuse me?

World War IV?

The first sentence in Etymology "The term is thought to have originated in the trenches of World War IV, but its origin is uncertain."

Removed Prod tag

I'm removing the tag because I object the allegation that this is "non-notable." A brief glance at Cooties in the media shows quite a bit of notability, and just about anybody who's been a kid on an American playground can tell you about cooties. While I agree that there needs to be better sourcing, that is a separate problem that doesn't necessitate the <prod> tag. CovenantD 00:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

punch to the rectum

Yeah if anyone has info on a cure for cooties being a punch to the rectum and not a shoulder source it then and put it back up otherwise I laughed hard because well it isn't something you expect to see on Wikipedia but it doesn't belong on here unless it's actually credible. Andrew831 20:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Lurgy

Having made some minor edits I am still not certain we have made the right distinction between cooties and the dreaded lurgy. Firstly, the lurgy is quite clearly a disease, and cooties would logically seem to be little creatures, or parasites of some kind, a bit like head lice. The most significant difference is that while both are used by children as justification for avoidance of the opposite sex (Girls have cooties! Girls have the lurgy!) lurgy is also freely used by adults and children alike when describing a minor contagious illness. e.g. a boy who has a cold and can't come to school might be said to have a touch of the lurgy, or to have caught the lurgy that's going around. It might even be suggested that he's been kissing his female classmates, however, it would be clear to the child and to anyone who heard that this is not the same lurgy as the one that girls have. Lurgy is a generic term for illness, whereas cooties is specific to an illness or parasite carried by the opposite sex. --JamesTheNumberless 09:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't lurgy really short for allergy? Cooties is usually an imagined touching disease, but probably also refers to head lice, sharing things MMetro (talk) 23:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

In the usage Im familiar with Lurgy is a non-specific illness. Feeling a wee bit under-the-weather might be 'a touch of the Lurgy'. I think the connotations are very different and IMHO someone with lurgy is not someone to be avoided Djlivi (talk) 23:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

This "lurgy" is a British thing that originated on The Goon Show. I'm a forty-year-old American, and had never even heard the term until today. --Ben Culture (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Too many cultural references?

I have the feeling that this list could become endless and possibly this section should be removed. Much like having a list of references to "tag" or "hopscotch" or any other children's game. Imagine if the article on baseball had a complete list of cultural references. Or the article on President Bush for that matter. --JamesTheNumberless 09:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, DITTO. This is why I'm here on the Talk page. I started cleaning up various entries in the "Cultural References" section, and by the time I got to the "Television" subsection, I was frustrated and exhausted. Cooties isn't really all that notable a topic, anyway -- just because it's familiar doesn't make it important. The list of "Cultural References" is just a huge Trivia section, and such sections attract the kind of contributors who are lazy, or don't know what they're doing, who make sloppy, questionable edits that need to be repaired or removed later by someone else. These kinds of sections can turn an article into an ugly nightmare. I wouldn't really object to the whole article being deleted, actually, but certaintly this "Cultural References" section needs to be clamped down upon, or removed.
--Ben Culture (talk) 11:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

A bizarre revert

A recent revert by a visitor, devolved this article to a previous shorter, unwikified and less refined version and it seems to have gone unnoticed by subsequent editors. I have restored it to what I beleive is its most complete state. If anyone disagrees, or has an argument for why the previous version was better, please debate here before reverting or otherwise drastically editing the article. If I have consequently undone any genuine constructive additions, please re-add them. --JamesTheNumberless 14:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for catching this. Upon examination, my suspicions were confirmed that a lot of useful information has been stripped from this article, perhaps by those who have been pushing for its deletion. I have begun reincorporation of some of the earlier material, starting with elements of popular culture. (Surely the reference in To Kill A Mockingbird, for example, is of historical and cultural merit.) Feel free to continue the restoration if you have time. --Markzero 08:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC) ==

Jumping Monkeys

If you're on watch about this article, it was mentioned and highlighted by Leo Laporte for additional editing in the July 28 episode of Jumping Monkeys about 37 minutes in (his parenting podcast with Megan Morrone). Just a warning...Nate 08:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Origin of the term

"An alternative account of the adoption of the term into English..."

This doesn't make sense, because the 'alternative' account given is the only account given of the possible origin of the term. Was there originally another derivation at the start of the article? WikiReaderer 14:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I think there was originally something about soldiers in the trenches during the World Wars and the slang use of "cooties." --Kenneth M Burke 17:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why this page describes cooties as if they were fictional. With the possible exception of the bit about them being gender-specific, no, they're not fiction. They're head lice, nothing more, and are an all-too-real annoyance when they spread in the classroom environment. --66.102.80.212 (talk) 16:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Simply put

This article is a great source of amusement. I know this comment has nothing to do with improving the article, but I couldn't resist, it's just too cute! :)--Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this word singular or plural?

I saw that in some places the word cooties is used a singular and in some placed plural. So is cooties singular or are cooties plural?Trilobitealive (talk) 18:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Cooties would be singular because its talking about the "disease" cooties, not the lil bug thingers. Since cooties is one disease it would be singular.

An example: "Apples and Oranges is my favorite band." (you would use is instead of are)

I hope that cleared things up

--208.71.218.2 (talk) 18:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't ever recall hearing "cootie" back in the 50s-60s -- it was always plural in formation, though apt to be singular in use. drh (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Chicken's cock dissolving?

"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 Sisters". Symptoms included his beak falling down, his eyes, lips,and penis dissolving, his eyeballs popping out of his head, and his beak shriveling."

is that really what is mentioned on the kids cartoon? --TiagoTiago (talk) 05:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

this bit seems to belong to the talk page

• (What about the plastic 'Cooties' game from the 1960's...a grasshopper looking thing and you roll the dice and put all the arms and legs on him/her?)

gonna remove that from the article itself--TiagoTiago (talk) 05:12, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Square-Dancing~!

So weird! Actualy, it's true. In 7th grade, when they made us square dance, one of the boys said "cooties" and so me and my friends added this to the article. Whoo!

Don't remove it from the article; It's awesome!--TiagoTiago (talk) 05:12, 12 February 2009(UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.248.31 (talk)

nonsense

In the United Kingdom the phrase "the lurgi", applicable to either sex, is commonly used by children. In south Wales the form is "scabs", and in Scotland "feechs".

I am Scottish and have worked as a primary teacher for many years. I've never heard of "feechs" and doesn't even look like a Scots or Gaelic word. In addition while "Lurgy" would be generally understood it is not used in the way in which cooties seems to be. This section is unfounded supposition. --Brideshead_{(leave a message)} 18:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, does lurgy have any connection to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Luna Lovegood uses the term "Loser's Lurgy?"--Pittsburghmuggle (talk) 06:32, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

lol

perhaps this fictional thing was started by mothers (or perhaps even a kid) many centuries ago to prevent/discourage boys and girls from interacting too closely with each other? speculation, yes, but not completely impossible Krishvanth (talk) 10:45, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The Play Insurance Market

Is there a source for the information in this section? If it's true that today's kids in the under-10 set are role-playing as insurance agents and talking about cooties as a pre-existing condition, then I'm honestly impressed; they're a heck of a lot more sophisticated than anyone I knew at that age. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.150.228.143 (talk) 01:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Just removed the following from the article:

"Children, in the course of pretending to be grownups for play, sometimes pretend to be representatives from health insurance companies. In this context, cooties is often considered to be a preexisting condition that is not eligible for insurance claims. Young children may tease other children by denying their pretend claims for compensation on these grounds."

Can anyone find a reliable source for this as I would love if we could put it back in.--filceolaire (talk) 18:53, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

That's absolutely hilarious; if it isn't true, it should be. --Ben Culture (talk) 12:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that, but I know the children in Europe, Canada and Cuba pretend to line up and wait months the see if the government will agree to pay for treatment. (rolls eyes). ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hijacked etymology reference

The dictionary reference is useful, but would be more useful if applied to statement that it verifies, and with a link so that future readers and editors can check. The sourced Malay kutu was changed to the unsourced Filipino kuto by hijacking the refernce, in this diff. What's right, I don't know, but let's go with what's sourced. I'll work on it. Dicklyon (talk) 00:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Cootie game

Seems to me that the Cootie game should be mentioned in the "popular culture" section.drh (talk) 16:25, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Localisation?

Perhaps it should be stated where this term is used or if it is just North American. I am British and I had never heard of it in 40+ years. In Scotland, the nearest term AIUI from my early years is "the jobby touch" (as if they have touched faeces, which they may or may not have), where the person having it is deemed unclean by their peers (male or female) and everyone runs away from them. Of course in the UK there are Nits (lice) but the social stigma seems a little different. In the UK/Ireland the Lurgy is just a generic term for all contagious illnesses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.177.233.98 (talk) 09:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well kids say it all the time here in Australia. But yeah, out of the things you mentioned up there it's probably the closest to having the 'hobby touch'. It's not much like nits at all, more of a gender thing rather than an actual condition. I think someone should find a source of it being used in Australia, and any other places outside of North America that say it. Cliko (talk) 08:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Trivial mentions

I'm thinking the entire "in popular culture" section should be purged. It's full of "cooties are mentioned in so and so TV show", which is about as unencyclopedic as it gets. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)