Imagine if your baby was in its cot staring up lovingly at you. And you, the doting parent, have waited many months for its first ever words.

Whilst drooling noticeably, its mouth doth open and out comes the word, “Brobdingnagian!”

The good news is this probably means your baby is a child genius in waiting. The bad news is they didn’t call you “mummy” or “daddy” and you can expect about as much affection going forward as a turd would receive. Hurray? Well, we have some advice.

 Brobdingnagian: Should You Be Concerned About Your Baby’s Berserk Announcement?

Dear agony aunt,

I am writing this to you while in floods of tears. Our baby, Jennifer, is but 10 months of age. My husband Charles and I have been patiently waiting for her to utter her first word, while plying her with books such as Don Quixote and Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle in an attempt to broaden her vocabulary beyond slurring words and gurgling like a tiny little drunk person.

This appears to have worked as yesterday she opened her mouth, gurgled, picked her nose, and then blurted out the fateful word, “Brobdingnagian!”

Charles was down the pub at the time, so muggins here was left to deal with this announcement by myself. Honestly, it’s like being a single parent at times… regardless, I was appalled by what baby Jennifer said. Brobdingnagian?! I had no idea what that meant and so had to go and look it up online. My main issues with baby Jennifer using such a word is this:

1. I was expecting her to say “Mummy!” thus confirming my superiority over “daddy” as Jennifer’s favourite parent.
2. I’ve had to go around telling everyone my baby’s first word was “brobdingnagian”.

Seeing the confused and/or terrified expression of the person I’ve told, before having to (once again) explain to them what the word means… it’s really getting quite annoying. It makes me think baby Jennifer did this on purpose to make my life a misery! As I can’t fathom any other explanation for this.

Well, unless she was speaking total gobbledegook and just lucked out in forming this bizarre adjective no one really ever utters from one day to the next.

Anyway, I told my husband Charles about this.

Initially, as he was half drunk at the time, he thought this was superb news! The next day, when he was very hungover, he’d changed his tune. Between fits of hangover-driven anxiety and paranoia, he came to believe baby Jennifer is “Satan spawn” and spouting “prophetic madness” that’ll bring about the end of “mankind”. He was most hysterical about all of it.

So am I, to be honest with you, and so I hastily wrote this message to you, agony aunt, between bouts of hysteria and screaming.

Thoughts?

Henrietta

Hi there, Henrietta! First off, let us ascertain whether baby Jennifer did, indeed, say the dreaded word you’re dreading over. Here’s a breakdown.

https://youtu.be/N3kfPW-haYU?si=sloQ0zQ0O5Hivfws

If she did, indeed, say it as pronounced above, and was frothing at the mouth, wild-eyed, and snarling, then you have indeed got Satan spawn on your hands.

Give The Exorcist (1973) a watch for ideas on a successful exorcism.

However, if it’s apparent she’s not of demonic possession then it’s clear to us you’ve got a baby genius on your hands. Congratulations! Whilst this does mean the baby will treat you with utter contempt as her intellectual inferior, and will be intolerably smug through he precocious antics, rest assured this ensures her a fantastic future of many successes.

You won’t get any of that, of course, as baby Jennifer will most likely cast you off as a pathetic normal person with few worthwhile attributes.

Don’t let that get you down!

Instead, focus on birthing a second child. Hope that this one’s first words are “Bum, bum!” or something. Then you can enjoy parenthood as it should be! As in, free from the pulverising clutches of some unearthly genius child running rings around your every move.