Cooties

Sharing Food

Last night a few of my coworkers and I had dinner together. We had one of my favorite Korean foods, 회닾밥 (mixed rice with raw fish). One coworker also ordered some fried prawns as well. She dipped hers in the sauce but shared the rest. My other coworker asked if he could have the remaining sauce and she warned him that she had been dipping her food in the sauce. He wasn’t worried about getting cooties though, so he also dipped his prawn in the sauce. In Korea, we share our food when we dine together. The idea of buying a plate of food for yourself is more of a Western idea. My coworker and I have been living in Korea for so long, that it doesn’t bother us anymore.

Meaning

Cooties is a disease made up by children. It is used to socially isolate a peer. The idea of cooties is popular amongst elementary students as they discover sexual dimorphism. Boys think girls are gross and girls think boys are gross. The term is also propagated by adults possibly as a subconscious way to keep the sexes separated. When cooties is used between adults, it is meant as a joke. It draws attention to the differences between men and women in a cute way.

Example: Don’t talk to her. She has cooties.

Origin

Cootie originated as a WW1 term for the painful body lice that affected soldiers. It is thought to have originated from Oceana in the Austronesian language family. There is a word that refers to a parasitic insect: kuto or kutu. The term was picked up and first used by British soldiers. However, the game and term, cooties, is more popular in other Western countries.

Cooties Games

It was popularized in the 1919 Cootie Game. A player had to get a “cootie” virus in a cage. It was a simple dexterity puzzle where the player could not touch the virus.

A childhood game arose regarding cooties. It appears to have become popular in the 1950s when polio vaccines were common. It is like a game of tag where you have to avoid the other children with cooties. If you get touched by the person with cooties, you will also be infected by cooties. In many versions of the game, there is a vaccine available or some type of antidote. Through this simple game, children are exposed to the concept of infectious diseases and the value of vaccinations. Unfortunately, due to the ‘boys vs girls’ nature of the game, it also reinforces traditional gender roles.

There was also a tabletop Cooties game. It was originally played at wedding showers. Wedding showers are parties for women before they get married. Traditionally, these parties were women only. They played games, drank, partied, or whatever they wanted to do. In the Cooties game, they would roll dice to construct an insect that would torment the soon-to-be husband. In early versions of the game, women would draw the bug but in later versions there was a 3D bug that could be assembled.

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Reference:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-cooties-180971914/#:~:text=The%20word%20first%20appeared%20during,painted%20battlefield%20into%20a%20cage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooties
https://www.etymonline.com/word/cootie
https://daily.jstor.org/the-linguistics-of-cooties-and-other-weird-things-kids-say/