Remnants of small kid time.

“Tubalard”

There’s a word that hasn’t come to mind in many a year. Used often when I was somewhere in the early grades in elementary school.

It was a strange word that somehow just rolled off our tongues as kids, often conveyed in a taunting sing-song cadence.

“Tub a lard, tub a lard,” turned into three elongated syllables, but still all one word.

I can almost hear it hurled as a weapon, and still see the fingers pointed at the targets.

Yes, kids can be cruel, and I guess this means we were into what would now be called “fat shaming.” Of course, as I recall our own chubby friends were exempted. “Tubalard,” it seems, was an insult reserved for others, those who were on the outs.

Tubalards.

It took a long time for me to finally figure out it wasn’t just one weird word, but was really a phrase, “tub of lard.”

And, of course, at that time, lard was still a “thing” in many or most home kitchens, although it was challenged by Crisco, that canned fat that was marketed as “pure” and, we were supposed to think, was more healthy as a result.

I haven’t heard the word in many decades, and thought it was just an archaic relic from that distant past. But a quick online search appears to indicate the word may still be used occasionally.

And there’s another word I recall from the same general era. Again, something you yelled scornfully at other kids.

Bakatare (although pronounced like “baka tade”).

Japanese translated something like “fool,” “stupid,” or “idiot”. You get the idea.

A lot of students went to Japanese school in the afternoons, and this is one of those words that migrated back to the rest of us, I guess.

It was a useful word, as I recall.