>"ta ta"--does anybody use those localisms anymore?
"Ta ta" is used by small children, in the main, to mean bye bye. I assume it's mainly a Northern expression. Lots of words are repeated in traditional nursery talk "din din" means lunch or dinner, "woof woof" for dog, "chuff chuff" for train. These days we've all read the psychology books and tend to use "real" words instead, for better or worse. I love local family words, my daughter always said "moats" for milk. A little boy visiting recently was asked to remove his finger from an orifice and said "mummy, I can't, I have nostril ache!"
The other local variation on words is timing of meals. I was aways brought up (in a Northern working class-ish are) to eat dinner at dinner time (midday-ish) and tea at teatime (5pm ish). It was rare to find anyone eating lunch and dinner. We didn't get confused about when to have a dinner party as we didn't have dinner parties!
