Cooties is a slang word in American English, used by children, referring to a fictitious disease. Cooties are believed to be a highly contagious disease or condition, generally carried by members of the opposite sex. One supposedly catches cooties through any form of bodily contact, close proximity, contact with an "infected" person's possessions, or third-party transmission. In prepubescent children it serves as a device for enforcing separation of the sexes. An older person may jokingly refer to cooties when talking about awkwardness toward sex and relationships. An alternative account of the adoption of the term into English traces it back to the American occupation of the Philippines, in 1898-1945. In most (Malay-derived) Philippine languages the term for head lice is "kuto"; American troops in the Philippines had ample opportunity to become familiar with the species, and quickly adopted local terminology. For other uses, see Slang (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see American English (disambiguation). ... This article is about sexual practices (i. ...

Originally, the term implied body lice, but over time this became generalized to any sort of lice, including head lice. The term then evolved into a purely imaginary stand-in for anything that is considered repulsive. In British English the term lurgy may be used in the same context. However, lurgy has a broader definition and the two concepts are not necessarily equivalent. Suborders Anoplura (sucking lice) Rhyncophthirina Ischnocera (avian lice) Amblycera (chewing lice) Lice (singular: louse) (order Phthiraptera) are an order of over 3000 species of wingless parasitic insects. ... The head louse Head lice (Pediculus humanus capitis) are one of the many varieties of sucking lice (singular louse) specialized to live on different areas of various animals. ... Imagination is accepted as the innate ability and process to invent partial or complete personal realms within the mind from elements derived from sense perceptions of the shared world. ... British English (BrE, BE, en-GB) is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere in the Anglophone world. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Lurgi. ...

The "cootie catcher"

Made of folded paper, the "cootie catcher" is one name for a popular hand held toy among school children. One surface is blank, the other drawn with dots, the "cooties". The joke is to show the blank side, then run the toy through someone's hair, revealing the dotted surface. It's made so each surface looks the same apart from the "cooties". The device is also sometimes called a fortune teller and used to tell fortunes.It is also when a boy sticks his cock into the womans pussy and move in and out multiple times. An elaborately decorated cootie catcher. ... A teddy bear A toy is an object used in play. ... The Fortunes are an archetypal English beat group. ...

The "cootie shot"

Children sometimes "immunize" each other from cooties by administering a "cootie shot." One child typically administers the "shot" by reciting the rhyme "circle, circle / dot, dot / now you've got your cootie shot" while using an index finger to trace the circles and dots on another child's forearm. Yet another variation of the cootie shot is "circle, circle / square, square / now you have it everywhere," in which a child expecting an immunization is connived by a friend into being infected with cooties throughout his or her body. a final shot is said "circle, circle/ knife, knife/ now you've got it all your life" while using their index finger to draw vertical lines or the other child's forearm. The cootie shot is known to last 5-7 years for each individual to which it is given. Upon further "contamination" another shot must be administered in order to prevent infection. A child being immunized against polio. ... An injection is a method of putting liquid into the body with a hollow needle and a syringe which is pierced through the skin to a sufficient depth for the material to be forced into the body. ... The Index finger The index finger, pointer finger or forefinger is the second digit of a human hand, located between the thumb and the middle finger. ... // The Human Forearm The forearm is the structure on the upper limb, between the elbow and the wrist. ...

Cooties in Popular Culture

As with any cultural convention, or fondly remembered concept from childhood, cooties are often referenced in movies, music, on television, in novels and on the internet. References range from physical manifestation as fantastical creatures to more realistic portrayal as a cultural convention and to the traditional interpretation as lice. For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as... For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ...

Television

• Cooties have been referred to in a number of episodes of The Simpsons. In one episode ("Homer: Bad Man") Bart claims they come from "a girl's butt" and in "The Wandering Juvie" Bart is told by Gina that there is no such thing as cooties (as well as a variety of fake "cootie-repelling" type items such as cootie insurance, which Bart appears to have bought). In another episode, Tennis the Menace, Homer asks a Cootie Catcher "Do I have cooties?" He then opens a tab and reads "No." followed by "Wow this home testing kit has saved me a fortune!" There is also an episode in The Simpons where Bart gives milhouse his cootie shot by punching him.
• Cooties is also mentioned in a Friends episode, during Season 5, when Joey referred to Rachel as having the cooties because Ross was selling all of his belongings which Rachel may have touched or come in contact with.
• Cooties feature in the 1990s television series Dexter's Laboratory, as small, girly insects with curly snouts that inhabit the bedroom of Dexter's older sister, Dee Dee.
• In one of the episodes of Codename: Kids Next Door, where the KND scientists believed that their underwater science lab is quarantined because of cooties.
• In the Bobby's World episode "Cooties", kids start avoiding Bobby, believing he contracted cooties when he was kissed by Jackie.
• On an episode of the Cartoon Network program Cow & Chicken, Chicken was kissed by a girl named Whiney. This leads everybody to believe that Chicken has a particularly lethal strain of cooties known as "Whiney Cooties". Symptoms included his beak falling down, his butt dissolving, his eyeballs popping out of his head, and his beak shriveling.
• In one episode of the Cartoon Network program The Powerpuff Girls, cooties were featured prominently, since at first, they are the main weakness of the Rowdyruff Boys, as they explode when the Girls kiss them in order to defeat them. However, later on, when they are resurrected by Him, they are given anti-cootie vaccinations to make them immune to the Girls' kisses.
• The MTV2 show Wonder Showzen featured an episode called "health" where a character called Wordsworth comes down with a case of the cooties; his friend Him uses it to his advantage and sells Wordsworth's encrusted cootie sores as snack treats.
• One of the supposed cures "Circle Circle Dot Dot" is a song by Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone that was featured on their MTV show Blowin' Up. The song references cooties.

Simpsons redirects here. ... The Wandering Juvie is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons fifteenth season. ... For the comic book series of the same name, see Bart Simpson comics. ... Tennis the Menace is the twelfth episode of the twelfth season of The Simpsons and was the third episode to be digitally colored. ... An elaborately decorated cootie catcher. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ... Dexters Laboratory (Dexters Lab for short) is an American animated television series created by Genndy Tartakovsky. ... Bobbys World is a childrens animated television series, which ran from 1990 to 1998, on FOX. It was about the daily life of Bobby Generic (pronounced Jen-A-Rick) and his very overactive imagination on how he sees the world. ... For Cartoon Network outside of the United States, see Cartoon Network around the world. ... Cow & Chicken is an Emmy Award-nominated American animated television series, created by David Feiss. ... For Cartoon Network outside of the United States, see Cartoon Network around the world. ... The Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series about three little girls in kindergarten who have superpowers. ... The RRB as they first appeared. ... MTV2 is a cable network that is widely available in the United States on digital cable and satellite television, and is progressively being added to basic cable lineups across the nation. ... Wonder Showzen was an American sketch comedy television series that began airing in 2005 on MTV2. ... Circle Circle Dot Dot is a single by Jamie Kennedy and Stu Stone. ... This article is about the actor. ... Stuart Stu Stone is a Canadian film, television, and voice-over actor as well as a music producer and rapper. ... This article is about the original U.S. music television channel. ... Blowin Up is a comedic reality show on MTV. The show stars Jamie Kennedy, an actor who follows his dream of becoming a successful rapper. ...

Movies

• In the 1995 Hollywood hit, Pulp Fiction, cooties are mentioned in the context of sharing a drinking straw.
• Irwin catches cooties and mono from kissing Mandy in Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure.
• In the movie Grease cooties are mentioned when Jan passes the bottle of wine to Sandy.

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film by director Quentin Tarantino, who cowrote the film with Roger Avary. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long. ... For the original stage musical of the same name, see Grease (musical). ...

Literature

• Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, does not seem to worry about catching cooties from close contact with individuals. However, he fears that he will catch them when he is the only boy on a playground full of girls. Apparently he believes that they are received from airborne transmission, as he begins breathing through his shirt and shouting "Air filter! Air filter!". In the same strip, Susie Derkins, one of the secondary characters who Calvin is with at the time, assures him that "Stupidity produces antibodies." Cooties are also mentioned when Hobbes is explaining that being in love means that when you see the object of your affection; your heart crushes your innards, makes you sweat, shorts the circuits to the brain and makes you babble like a cretin. As Calvin hears this he says that that happened him once, but that he thought that it was the cooties.
• Cooties are mentioned as lice in a child's hair in "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.

Listen to this article (3 parts) (info) Part 1ʉۢ Part 2ʉۢ Part 3 This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-01-29, and may not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... Bacteria and viruses showing the ability to be transmitted through aerosols are considered to be airborne. ... To Kill a Mockingbird is a Southern Gothic bildungsroman novel by Harper Lee. ... Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American novelist known for her Pulitzer Prize Рwinning 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, her only major work to date. ...

Music

• "Cooties" was also one of the competitive song and dance numbers in the Broadway Musical, Hairspray. It was sung by Amber announcing that her rival Tracy Turnblad has cooties. The song incorporates "Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot, Dot" as a dance move. In the motion picture, the song is sung by jazz vocalist Aimee Allen in the background of the dance-off in one of the final scenes, and is not sung by the character Amber.
• Name of a Columbia, Missouri band known as the Cootie Shot Scandal.
• Kooties is also a funk rock band from Australia
• Frank Zappa - Dinah-Moe Humm: "So I pulled on her hair, Got her legs in the air, An' asked if she had, any cooties on there; (Whaddya mean cooties! No cooties on me!)"
• Cootie Shot is a punk band based in northeast Pennsylvania.

Hairspray is a musical with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark ODonnell and Thomas Meehan, based on the 1988 John Waters movie Hairspray. ... For the 1988 film, see Hairspray (1988 film). ... Nickname: Location in the state of Missouri Coordinates: Country United States State Missouri County Boone Government  - Mayor Darwin Hindman Area  - City  59 sq mi (138. ...

See also

• List of fictional diseases
• Sex education
• Gender studies
• Gender identity

This article is an attempt to compile a list of fictional diseases—nonexistent, named medical conditions which appear in fiction. ... An early 20th century post card documents the problem of unwanted pregnancy. ... Gender studies is a theoretical work in the social sciences or humanities that focuses on issues of sex and gender in language and society, and often addresses related issues including racial and ethnic oppression, postcolonial societies, and globalization. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ...

External links

• Origin of "cooties" from The Straight Dope