Did cooties ever really exist?

Question

Or was it a cruel hoax to stop me from talking to girls when I was younger...

okay after seeing many of your answers I now officially have a sound reason(excuse) for not losing my virginity until I was 17. I can blame the threat of cooties

Answer 1

YES.....
Guys have them too.. I got them once in the 2nd grade. Was sick for weeks afterwards. Some boy gave me the cooties. Better warn your kids!

Answer 2

Cooties is a fictional disease and a slang word used primarily by North American children to refer to a highly contagious disease or condition. It usually presents along gender lines, as in "Mary Jane O'Connor, stay away from those boys or you might get cooties!" The Commonwealth/British English equivalent is "the lurgy".

Originally, the term implied body lice, but over time this became generalised first to any sort of lice, including head lice, then later to purely imaginary stand-ins for just about anything that is considered repulsive. Although the origin is not explicitly known, it can be speculated that the imaginary disease was conceived from reference to how cooties (meaning body lice) can be spread through physical contact with the infested body region. This theory could explain how children developed the idea that cooties can only be spread to the opposite sex. Cooties started out as something the boys had, but was quickly associated with girls too. Cootie can also be used as a verb, as in "Don't touch that book! It was cootied by a boy!"

In some areas, boys are thought to be immune to catching cooties from another boy, and likewise for girls: so as a result cooties can only be spread by contact between the sexes. However, once infected with the cooties of the opposite sex, those cooties can be spread to members of the same sex. Ex. Sara catches "boy cooties" from Ryan, so Laura should avoid Sara lest she catch Sara's "boy cooties."

Answer 3

Yup. Cooties exist. They live in a game by Milton Bradley of the same name.

Answer 4

actually both, cooties was a slang for body or head lice. but also used to keep little boys and girls from getting to overly curious about each other before they were of age.

Answer 5

Websters thinks so:

One entry found for cootie.


Main Entry: coo·tie
Pronunciation: 'kü-tE
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps modification of Malay kutu
: BODY LOUSE

Answer 6

well i used to play a game called cootie where you actually got to make a cootie so if they made it a game it has to be real right?

Answer 7

Cooties is an archaic term for lice and yes, they still exist.

Answer 8

I have never heard of the word cootie.

Answer 9

Cooties=STDs

So yes. Girls have cooties as do boys.

Therefore keep your wee wee to yourself.

Answer 10

3. oversimplification about ethnicity, age, existence or political pastimes. ie. "The Feminists" choose / are responsible for this. "White women human beings" trust that and do this. "Older adult men" have a complicated about this and for this reason ______ . "stay at abode moms" are this way and should be _____. 4. Failing to admit that race, classification, and gender may have an awesome effect on someone's destiny and global view and that some communities do, in truth, jointly have an income (see form 5.) 5. Oversimplifying what that "income" truly is. Failure to understand the complicated dynamics in the back of how ability is disbursed and accomplished. 6. Skewed files, brainless propaganda. 7. Hate speech. thanks for asking this question. it truly is a breath of clean air.