I have some very cute nephews and a niece. My niece and nephews all have blond hair and are really the sutest children in the universe. I spent several days with my niece and two of my nephews, and had a riot chasing them around, playing in the lake and the sand, and hearing about LIGHTNING McQUEEN! and SHREK! as well as endless "Auntie, why...?" questions.
The annoying thing about the English language is that there's no word for nieces and nephews together. When you have a group of brothers and sisters together, you have siblings. Other languages have words for a group of sibling's children in mixed gender. So our family created one. They are ibbi. My ibbi (consisting of niece and nephew) are crazy fun, tiring, and downright adorable. The only thing that bugs me is that other members of the family use ibbi in the singular. Would you say, "My sibling is being annoying"? Only if they were a hermaphrodite. So, family, unless you are referring to a group which includes ibbi of both genders, please use the gender specific terms niece(s) and nephew(s).
3 comments:
It's just the English language. Us english speakers like to tack an "s" on the end of everything plural, so it's natural we should call one ibbi. I agree though; it's annoying, especially when they say something really stupid like, ibbi #4.
Interesting random fact: it used be just "nephew", but that word became associated with males and we lost it as a collective noun. (from AskOxford)
Andrew, you astound me with your random knowledge and/or googling prowess.
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