Summary: Mikey and Raph have a healthy debate using words from Mikey's latest word crazes while Leo and Don look on. Donatello contemplates Mikey's ever-expanding pet-word vocabulary.

Disclaimer: I absolutely positively probably possibly do not own the concept of TMNT.

A/N: This story accidentally got deleted by mistake while I was posting up "Becoming Fearless" so I've had to repost it (you know it's faster to delete a story and repost it than to edit it through the chapter editor). My appologies to anyone who have already seen it before.

WORD CRAZES

Allow me to describe a typical argument in the Hamato household. On one side of the living area stands an animated Mikey, and on the other side of the living area, stands Raph with his arms folded.

Mikey: You're a squadge.

Raph: You're a grog.

Mikey: You're a squadge.

Raph: You're a grog.

Mikey: What the shell is a grog?

Raph: What the shell is a squadge?

Mikey: You're still a squadge.

Raph: You're still a grog.

Mikey: You're definitely a squadge.

Raph: You're definitely a grog.

Mikey: Squadge!

Raph: Grog!

Mikey: Squadge!

Raph: Grog!

This conversation usually goes on for ages with neither side gaining the upper hand because neither of the words actually mean anything. Splinter retires to his room because technically speaking neither Mikey nor Raph were actually swearing, and it was not Splinter's custom to break up fights unless weapons were drawn or swearing was incorporated. Whilest Leo and I look on in amusement.

"Squadge!"

"Grog!"

"Super squadge!"

"Super Grog!"

"…"

"…"

"You'd think they'd be getting sick of it by now." Leo said to me.

"As long as Raph's sai doesn't go through the TV set, I'm happy." I replied.

I suppose you're wondering how this weird custom started. Well…

Mikey likes to go into crazes. And recently he's into making up new and crazy words. Each time a new combination of sounds pleases him, he likes to say it obsessively. The trouble is – he doesn't always assign a meaning to the new words.

There was a stage where he's run around calling everyone a 'moogle', and I'd say "What's a moogle?" and he'd say "I don't know." So I say "Why are you saying it then?" and he says "Because I want to." This continued until I got fed up and told him that because 'moogle' doesn't mean anything, it's not a real word. To which he replied "Of course it's a real word. I just said it."

In the end I gave up. My guess is that if there was ever a need for a new dictionary in English, it would be to cover all the pet-words that Mikey has come up with that don't yet mean anything.

Though one of his oldest pet-words has now acquired a meaning. 'Kawabunga' started off being something that Mikey just says when he's really excited. Something like 'wow' or 'cool'. It has now cemented into something along the lines of "bombs away!" and it's becoming more predictable when he will use it. However, most of his more recent pet-words have not yet acquired any meanings.

So where does Raph come into all this, you ask. Well, Raph had the same argument with Mikey as I did but got no closer to determining what Mikey's pet-words meant. The whole thing just got so ridiculous that Raph decided to come up with some pet-words of his own to counter Mikey's ever-growing vocabulary. Hence we get the kind of exchanges that I've just outlined with both sides using pet-words against each other like a game of verbal tennis. Of course the whole thing was no game for either Mikey or Raph, but it was just getting quite funny, not to mention ridiculous to hear them arguming in jibberish.

It usually ends with Raph finally losing his patience and actually incorporating real swear words in his exchange (some of which I would never use myself), and causing Splinter to come out of his room and silence both parties with his customary speech telling Raph to stop swearing and for Mikey not to provoke him.

So far most of Mikey's vocab is just a set of nonsensical nouns. Although he has been adding some adjectives recently like the word 'oogly', which has been the latest addition. We have the same problems determining what 'oogly' is supposed to mean. For some reason, there seem to be no verbs among the set of Mikian words but we have enough to deal with anyway. The closest thing to a verb I guess would be 'kawabunga'.

Initially we thought that each of Mikey's pet-words would be a passing phase and he'd say them until he got sick of them and then forget about them and move on to a new pet-word. He seems to have become fully confident that once his pet-words have been uttered that they are legitimate enough to stay on as words in their own right, and we get repeated usages of words from across the Mikian vocab.

We have yet to define what half of Mikey's pet-words mean. But one thing's for sure, they have become as much a part of Mikey as his nun-chucks and a typical day would not pass through the lair without us hearing at least one of his pet-words. I have no idea where he gets them from but I will admit that they are quite catchy since most of them are monosyllabic.

Ah Mikey. You can't live with him. You can't live without him.