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A baby girl named Delta speaking to a man, who could be her dad, may have just come up with the new word for ice cream, and everyone could only guess how she came up with it.
The funny incident was caught on video by the supposed dad. In the video, the man starts talking to the toddler by asking her to say the words “I love ice cream,” which the girl somehow manages to utter, but only up to a point, because she just cannot say the words “ice cream.”
The dad tries again, this time varying the challenge with the words “I want ice cream.” Again, the kid is able to say “I” and “want,” but not “ice cream.”
Her old man simply won’t give up. Next, he asks her to say “Delta eat ice cream,” supposedly referring to the girl and her love for ice cream. Delta is able to say her name, even the word “eat,” but again just can’t say “ice cream.”
And it goes on and on, with the dad even trying to help her out by breaking it down to “ice” and “cream,” both words the girl manages to say but just not straight out as “ice cream.”
In Delta’s vocabulary, ice cream does not seem to exist, and in its place is one mysterious, three-syllable word: camtono.
The video, posted by the British news outlet Daily Mail over its social media pages last Thursday (Aug. 31), has gone viral. As of this writing, the 1-minute-plus video has gained 17 million views, 419,000 likes and reactions, over 255,000 shares and at least 99,000 comments on Facebook. On Twitter, it now has 24,000 likes and nearly 17,000 shares.
The hilarious vid prompted FB commenters to share their own camtono-like experiences:
Image: Screen grab of comment on Daily Mail post via Facebook
Image: Screen grab of comment on Daily Mail post via Facebook
Image: Screen grab of comment on Daily Mail post via Facebook
Image: Screen grab of comment on Daily Mail post via Facebook
And while camtono is obviously baby-talk, a few Twitter commenters took the time out to draw theories on how the word came to be:
Image: Screen grab of comment on Daily Mail post via Twitter
Or how it can fare against another nonsensical word with presidential roots:
Image: Screen grab of comment on Daily Mail post via Twitter
While netizens await more details on Delta, her dad and other mystifying words she may have up her sleeves, one already took the initiative to enter the word in Urban Dictionary:
Image: Screen grab from Urban Dictionary
With that, camtono marks its little, delightful place in the unpredictable world of language. RA
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