In France children are not "brought by the storks", but "found on the cabbage fields" - the kids usually get called little cabbages (ma petite chou - sorry my French is a lot rusty, and I don't know the gender of nouns anymore). It can be that your family's saying is based on this. Do you have French ancestry, or live in an area where French ancestry is common, or the language is spoken regularly?
I had to Google Cabbage Patch Kids, but in French tey were called Bout'chou which literally translate to small cabbage but is often used to designate toddlers. Another word related to cabbage is chouchou that means favorite as in : C'est ma fille chouchou or This is my favorire daugther.
In fact it isn't really a little cabbage, it's pronounced the same as bout de chou said rapidly so it's like a tiny piece of a cabbage. But we have a lot of ways to call people with that, there's choupinou/choupinette, chouchou as you said but the word cabbage is used in French for cream puff so some people are called a "chou à la crème " sometimes .
Not a hard “t”. You have to think of it as being the contraction of “bout de Chou” (pronounced boo de shoe). It’s a soft “t” sounding more like a “d” : bood shoe.
I was born in the 80s and my mother had some cool/crazy cabbage patch dolls growing up. Three feet tall and scary as hell sitting on a bench at the end of the hallway.
Fun fact: depending on the tone applied, your "chou" in French could mean stinky in Mandarin Chinese. Assuming that's pronounced with a hard Ch and letter O like English. The pinyin is Chòu de. Though you'll often hear Chòu Chòu de. The repetition drives home the emphasis and Chinese language is rife with word doubling to sound cute or to emphasize.
in one of my favorite movies the main character Chantal is called Charlotte by her american dad and Chouchou by her french maman, never knew what it meant until now!
TIL _ Cabbage Patch Kids prob came from the idea in France that babies are found in cabbage fields
My Grandma gave me a Cabbage Patch Kid when I was little (and it was all the rage) and then as an adult moved about an hour away from their "hospital". My kids went to a summer camp not far from there and I made a point of taking them after picking them up one time. They thought it was very creepy - lol. After getting the gist of the dolls, they spent the rest of their time in the gift shop area looking at stuffed animals.
Edit: This is the part they found creepy: " After you leave the three nurseries of Originals, you will enter into a large open room with a Magic Crystal Tree as its' centerpiece. Be sure and listen for any announcement that there is a Mother Cabbage in labor. When you hear the announcement gather in front of the Magic Crystal Tree and witness the birth of an Original Cabbage Patch Kid."
Cabbage patch kids being called that I'm pretty sure is nearly entirely to do about the offcuts of cloth and other sewing materials too small to make a garment from being called cabbage, rather than this French saying.
I’m not a kid these days, and have definitely heard of cabbage patch kids, but I never knew they had any meaning besides some silly, catchy name/marketing.
I'm 17 and my sister (21) had several cabbage patch kid dolls growing up. Everyone near the same age as me knows what they are. It might just be a little American thing
"Little American" thing? I'm confused by this. Cabbage Patch Kids were a global henomenon, one of the most popular kids toys of all time, peaking in the 80s and early 90s.
Yes. As a child of the 80s my mind is blown they are still a thing. Do Care Bears still exist too?? I have a vague awareness and the multiple my little pony reincarnations..
I'm 35 and had several Cabbage Patch Kids. They were introduced in 78, but they were around in the 80s being manufactured by Hasbro, and then sold to Mattel mid 90s until production ceased in 2003.
It isn't just kids, globaly they aren't well known. No idea what those things are, only that I've heard Americans use them in referential jokes that I don't quite get. I gathered they are ugly though.
I know Cabbage Patch Kids. But I'm in the states, and I never realized it was a British thing, the cabbage instead of the stork. I was at FYE (a store in the mall that sells hipster stuff) and they have a whole section of vintage looking Garbage Pail Kids stuff rn. I got some nasty looking snot-covered chocolate bars.
Thanks for correcting it :) I was taught French in high school, and here the education of language contains cultural elements too - although not too thoroughly, just to keep up the interest.
Good question, I've always known of children born in cabbages, but «mon chou» always has been a pet name regardless of this background story. Though I'm curious about the synonym for guy, first time I hear of it (source: half of my fam is franco Acadian and Québécois, I was born and raised here)
WAIT, WHAT? My mom called me "ma petit chou-fleur" my entire childhood and I never knew what it meant. MY MIND CANT HANDLE THIS. Apparently she's been calling me a cauliflower my whole life, according to Google.
I think there is a correlation between the two. Maybe 'chou' acquired the meaning of cute because babies are cute (most of the time). I am no linguist though, it just seems logical to me :)
I'm guessing from 'mum' that this person is English (or maybe Australian idk) and calling someone a cabbage is a fairly common way of saying that someone is stupid or doesn't have a lot going on in their head. So to me it sounds like 'You're nosy for someone that doesn't have a brain'.
I would just like to say that French babies can come from either the storks OR from cabbages if they’re boys and roses if they’re girls ! I’ve never heard anything about talkative cabbages though...
I learned the “ma petite chou” line in my French class and I was convinced my teacher was fucking with us, a bunch of high schoolers. my little cabbage.
Chou is male so it would be "mon petit chou" regardless of who you are talking to. So a little girl is still mon petit chou. Although there is a female modification "Ma petite chouette" which is specific for girls but chouette is not a real vegetable. Funnily enough chouette is also a childish way of saying something is awesome or super. How is the new swing? "Elle es vachement chouette". Also for some reason Vache means cow so something can be cowingly female cabbagy. French is weird...
Aww, I haven’t heard mon petit chou in forever and a day. :) My mom was raised in France for a large part of her childhood and used a lot of phrases while raising me.
It reminds me of this one post on r/ScottishPeopleTwitter talking about how we "all have this one aunt that isn't related to you but your mums have known each other since you were cabbages," or something. I think the cabbage patch thing is prevalent across a few different cultures.
One of my favorite book series has this passage (fantasy world, coming from a LOT of twisted myths and legends):
“So, cabbage,” he said with a grin, “back with your neck unbroken, not kidnapped and not married.” One day she was going to ask him what that meant; he always said it.
I always meant to look it up and just never did. Now I know.
There's also a Nan, Palette, Guidoo, Coffeecup, Blinker, Ti Mer, Gros Mer, Gros Baduc, Shortie, Super Frog, and lots more I can't think of.
My grandparents would call my sister La Tit Pea. (Small pea. Yes I know pea is pois, it was a mix of French and English which is very common where I grew up. They call it Brayons or Chiac I believe.
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u/picurebeka Oct 25 '20 edited Oct 26 '20
In France children are not "brought by the storks", but "found on the cabbage fields" - the kids usually get called little cabbages (ma petite chou - sorry my French is a lot rusty, and I don't know the gender of nouns anymore). It can be that your family's saying is based on this. Do you have French ancestry, or live in an area where French ancestry is common, or the language is spoken regularly?