A real insult

Were the average person to be polled about careers that he or she considered "fun," editing would probably not score terribly high on the list: maybe right below "Folding takeout containers." * Recently, however, as part of my editorial duties I was engaged in some exciting research that, while remaining completely serious and scholarly in nature, involved the words "poopy-butt."

The author of the book I was editing was giving several examples of what he refers to as children's "mistaken behavior." All of these examples involved the use of swear words or "hurtful" words. In these examples, the children seemed to believe that insulting words hurled at another child should contain particular parts of the body, namely "butt" or "head," or preferably both. 

It is not hard to see the attraction of these two body parts as weapons in interpersonal attacks. If you try to substitute others -- say, "knee," as in  "poopy-knee" or "butt-knee" -- the appeal factor drop off dramatically. 

So it is understandable that the same words would keep coming up in the examples in this particular chapter I was editing. For adults reading the chapter, however, it began to feel like you had suddenly dropped onto a playground and were in imminent danger of being slammed with a poopy-butt or butt-head comment.

(For similar effect, let me recommend any campaign discussion or ad on TV.)

So I sent the author what is known as an "author query," a respectful question about something in the text that is not quite clear or could perhaps be improved upon. Generally such questions read something like this:

Perhaps elaborate on the differences between the progressives and John Dewey, which is discussed in Chapter 5, page 17. What, for example, was the teacher's role, in Dewey's philosophy?

My query about the hurtful words went like this:

Chapter 9 contains "butt-head" twice and "poopy-butt" once. Could we perhaps have one insult that does not contain the word "butt"?

The author solicited help from a grandchild, and came back with the word "jughead."

It's his book, but really. Jughead? Just how old was this grandchild?

Any good editor has a stable of experts she goes to when she needs particular information. I am no exception.

"Help," I texted two relatives who have young children. "How do kids insult e/o? Poopy-butt & butt-head out."

The kids, upon being directly interrogated about their and their friends' use of insulting names for each other, went suddenly blank. They could not come up with anything.

"Snowball?" a timid 3-year-old finally ventured.

"Freak," offered an older child.

I queried another source, but her children also went silent. "I've heard them use stupid, stupid-head, and big baby," she texted.

I thought "stupid-head" would be appropriate, plus it had the advantage of being a cousin to butt-head. I queried the author again with the three choices. "Any of these work?" I asked.

After some deliberation, he selected "stupid-head" as most having the ring of authenticity among the angry younger set.

Even after the decision was made, the discussion was continued with some of my experts at a family dinner. One Little Person, upon being rammed by his sister during some rough play, had complained that "she hit me like a BUFFALO!"

Fads catch on quickly with Little Persons. So perhaps it's only a matter of time before "buffalo-head" comes into popularity. 

*This is not to be taken as an insult against those who fold takeout containers. And we editors do occasionally have fun on the job (but mostly, food has to be involved).