OUR WAY WITH WORDS

I’ve been thinking about language that is specific to my family. Phrases and words that we use that no one else does (or maybe a few but not the general public, if you see what I mean). The secret vocabulary that we adopt or invent that enters our conversations, maybe as a joke, and sticks. I’m not talking about baby talk, the garbled misinterpretations that small children add to their language and that slip into our adult lexicons, though those would really count as well. And I’m not talking about generational jargon that we gather as teens and young people and stick to for the rest of our lives (like cool beans, which my first family all says (at least my sister and I), and I always react when someone else uses that phrase, because it’s always surprising that it isn’t just OURS.

I mean words or phrases that strike us with such force or humor that we thereafter always use them and our family will pass them down and around, like little nuggets of coolness that we think are funnier or better or the best way to say something. Do you have any of these?

I’ve written before about my family’s use of the word “snucky“, which we took from a Garfield comie strip in 1986. It was actually my college roommate Chris who started it. But we latched on, and snucky is now the definitive word to use when you’ve got a cold.

But we have others. Some of them I know the origin of, but others were unexpected gifts from various sources that are now lost in the murky mists of memory. Here are a favorite few:

Snow scabs and snow snakes
Winter words! Snow scabs are the small stubborn half-melted drifts that are still hanging on out on the edges of the yards and fields and roads when the rest of the snow has melted away and disappeared. Snow snakes are those whipping serpentine granular lines of snow that cross the road in front of you as your car is carefully finding it’s way up the hill between fields where the snow is blowing to and from.

Shez Louezz
This one came from Martin’s friends Sandra and Maritza, twins that lived in our neighborhood, that he hung out with for several years in upper elementary school. It’s a Swedishized version of Geez Louise, which I say all the time, and which the girls didn’t understand and thought sounded funny. They couldn’t pronounce it correctly, and their version struck me as so much funnier, that it’s a go-to phrase for me still, and occasionally for the kids, to this day.

Pizza bones
I can’t remember who said this first, though I think it was possibly something Anders or someone in his family said. It’s the crusts from pizza that don’t get eaten, that get left on your plate.

Much grass
A bastardization of Muchas Gracias, similar to donkey shoe for Danke Schön or mercy buckets for Merci Beaucoup. I heard it from my friend and colleague Barbara and for some reason, it stuck.

Blinker fluid
Some friend of mine must have used this and I thought it was hilarious, though I don’t remember now who it was. In the context of someone ahead of you not using their indicators while driving because they “must be out of blinker fluid”.

It’s weird what sticks and what doesn’t, because I know that I’ve exclaimed so many times over something that I’ve heard, that THAT is awesome or hilarious or perfect and I’m totally going to steal it and use it, and then it slides away and is forgotten. I don’t know what made all of these stick. There are probably others that we use and have used for years that I can’t come up with right now.

What words or phrases have your or your family adopted that need to be shared? Do tell!

While I was looking for a title for this post, I found this quote that made me laugh out loud: “Some people have a way with words, and other people…oh, uh, not have way.” (Steve Martin)

Mood: silly
Music: Hoobastank—A Thousand Words