![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The use of the chatterbox as paper fortune tellers date back to school playgrounds in England, in the 1950s. Tiny dots would be drawn inside the cootie catcher to represent bugs, and the corners of the cootie catcher would act as pincers, trapping all the cooties inside! Fortune Teller Girls were considered contagious until a friend used a cootie catcher to rid her of diseases. However, it was more popularly known as a playground term used to describe pretend “germs” that girls would get from being around boys (ick!). The term was also later used by the military in World War I when soldiers were ravaged by body lice. But it also comes from the British definition of being infested with lice, as coots (waterfowl) were believed to be covered in them. Cootie Catcherĭid someone say cooties?! If that doesn’t bring back playground memories of being temporarily teased by your friends, then I don’t know what does! “Cootie” apparently comes from the Malay word “kutu” which means “dog tick”. But they can also be used to hold eggs or more exciting things like small snacks – hey, I just said what you were thinking. Yep! When standing on a table, the pockets where your fingers would usually go were made to hold salt. The chatterbox was originally introduced to the Western world in an origami book in 1928. Yet its physical structure has always been the same. From a salt cellar to a fortune teller, there’s been quite the evolution. The chatterbox has undergone a few changes to get to what it is now. Yet the chatterbox is now played worldwide, with different names in each country, such as the “ flip flapper” in Denmark. This paper-folding activity is also known as a form of origami, from the Japanese words “oru” (to fold) and “kami” (paper). All it took was a pencil and a piece of paper folded with the utmost precision but most likely torn straight from an exercise book. Childhood wouldn’t have been the same without them. They were the perfect way to pass time at school before getting into trouble for giggling at the back of the class. Ahh, the chatterbox! In an existence where screens are taking over as entertainment, it’s nice to reflect on such a playground favourite. ![]()
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