Chickabee
...that is pretty much the only word that nell says that i dont understand...does anyone else understand it? or actually the entire chant that she does...i dont understand it...can someone please translate it for me?
share[deleted]
MovieChat Forums > Nell (1994) Discussion > Chickabee
agree... like calling a baby "chicka-pea" or "chick pea"... perhaps her mother called Nell and her twin sister by this.
shareI always thought chickabee was derived from chickabiddy, an endearment in the Southeast and I think also in some places in rural New England.
Dear, dear, dear one
Thee and me, thee and me
Stay, stay, stay with me
Dear, dear, dear one.
as a life-long New Englander, I have never heard chickabee except for this movie and I have certainly never heard the word chickabiddy.
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a very incorrectly spelt and mispronounced word for grandmother in Mi'kmaq - definity a term of endearment
shareI've lived in New England since I was 17 and I haven't heard it either, but Molly said that it was in SOME places in New England, not all. If you live in New England, you know that there are many dialects/accents all depending on where you go. People from Bangor sound different and use different slang than people in Boston or than people in the Berkshires. It could be a rural thing, unique to a few communities. I'm not going to dispute it because I haven't lived in every New England community. Just wanted to point out that it is a possibility even if we, personally, haven't heard it.
share"Little Chickadee" is a term of endearment. I suppose Nell was just pronouncing it "Meesa [little] Chickabee".
WB
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Here in the American South, there's a saying that, if you have two twins, for example, they are alike as two chick peas. If you open a can of chick peas, you see the basis for the saying; they're all alike, uniform, same size, coloration, everything. This is my belief for the origin of the chickapea term; Nell's mother used to exclaim over the two of them as being as alike as two chick peas when they were growing.
shareOr Nell's mom could have had a fondess for Western Massachusetts...
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Can't vouch for the validity of twins being referred to as chick peas in the SE, but assuming that is true I like your explanation.
shareIt's not twins, per se, it would apply to anything that looked exactly like another of it's kind. Really, open a can of garbanzo beans (aka chick peas) and see what I'm talking about; they don't vary by a micrometer from the next one in size, shape or texture.
shareI like your "chick peas" explanation. I bet Violet said things like "Look at you two little chick peas." She dressed them alike and everything.
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Garbanzo bean.
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