Talking 'Bout It!

My six-year-old son tends to repeat a certain phrase, usually an exclamation of excitement or distress, repeatedly throughout the day to greet certain developments. A catchphrase, if you will, much like an ESPN announcer or a bad comedian. Often, these phrases are slight variations on actual phrases commonly used by English-speaking humans. Most recently, he's been saying "Talking 'bout it!!" whenever he gets really excited. An example of conversational usage would go something like: ME: "Hey Robbie, it sure rained a lot today didn't it?" HIM: "Talking 'bout it!! There were huge puddles everywhere!!"

Now I of course find this to be the most endearing thing in the world, but it's also interesting to me in a linguistic sense. In this case, it seems like he's conflated two common phrases he's heard on TV or from the adults in his life--"tell me about it" and "that's what I'm talking about!" and unknowingly created his own, new exclamation. I love that language works that way, and I rue the day when he will stop creating his own Robbie-isms and start saying exactly what all the other kids are saying. That will of course happen (and if it didn't he'd probably eventually be publicly humiliated by some asshole kid on the playground), but it will mark the end of certain part of his childhood when it does.

Even the youngest of us don't stay young forever. That's the closest thing we've got to certainty in this life.