When I was little we called scratches and scrapes and cuts “unnies.” I have no idea why. The steak knives were referred to as “unnie knives” because they could cut you.
I picked up the word “squabbit” from my wife’s family. Her parent’s house has a big area of woods directly behind it filled with both squirrels and rabbits and the dogs love to chase them. Anytime said dog is outside and begins going nuts someone will announce it must be after a squabbit since it’s about 50-50 which critter it might be chasing.
My wife and I use the word “moo” for everything. It started out when we were living a long distance apart while dating and would sort of run out of interesting things to say while on the phone. It became sort of a space filler. Now we just say it randomly and add it to other words for no apparent reason. The following is an actual conversation earlier today.
“Have you seen the catmoo?”
“I think he’s taking a dumpmoo”
“okaymoo”.
God, I’m glad I married someone as strange as I am.
Hehehe,
jsc1953 and Wile E, you’re welcome to use nostrils. Just be aware that an angered Gzortch is a Very Bad Thing. “Eater of earwax” also comes from this, as a mild insult (one, if one worships Gzortch, realises that snot is the thing that one eats.)
But that also means that “earwax” describes food sometimes. For example, my picky-eater 11 year old spends a lot of time trying to figure out what’s for dinner, so he can whine about it for an hour or two. So the general answer is “earwax” in some form.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Nostrils in earwax sauce!”
“Ewwww…!”
Yeah, we’re strange. But it is fun in here!
Cheers,
G
I watch hockey on the French TV station, with my brother. “Power play” is a “Superiorité numérique” in French, and it’s abbreviated to sup. num. on the screen. So now when we’re talking about something being overpowered or outnumbered, we call it being “supnummed”.
Most of our inside joke words are about hockey. We’re weird like that.
In my family, we are chuckley if we are warm, cozy and comfortable (usually involving a blanket). Also, we refer to asparagus as aspraguts thanks to my little brother who offered to eat an entire can of aspraguts in exchange for a box of cap’n crunch. And just so you know, I am now using bacony in my household…it is too awesome a word not to use.
My folks taught me a little poem when I was very young
“There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead
And when she was good, she was very very good; and when she was bad she was horrid”
For some reason, I named this little girl “Skinit” - so whenever I was misbehaving, I was being a Skinit
Hmmm. Not exactly a family word, but my general expression of not really caring is “Un Un Ipswitch”(Un pronounced Oon, not sure why). A while ago I was up too late and under the influence of far too much tea, and I started saying nothing but the syllable ‘Un’. All different inflections to mean various things, and I was actually relatively understandable. A pretty fun voice exercise. My sister, however, was very annoyed and told me I couldn’t say anything but ‘Ipswitch’- I think she was trying to discourage me by giving me a longer word. When I kept on going, this time saying ‘Ipswitch’, she told me that I should just speak normally. I shrugged and said the first configuration of sounds I could come up with, and so, ‘Un Un Ipswitch’ was born.
Every Easter, all of my family members on my father’s side call each other up and say, “Happy Easter Oyster Egg.”
No one knows what it means. When my father and uncle were kids, my great-grandmother (their mother’s mother) would send the family a basket of Easter lilies every year, with a card reading “Happy Easter Oyster Egg.”
It was clearly some kind of inside joke between their mother and grandmother. Their mother–my grandmother–died in the late 1950s, but their grandmother continued sending them the basket of lilies with the card every year. No one thought to ask her what it meant, and when she died in 1981, the back-story died with her. Now we all just call each other up and say, “Happy Easter Oyster Egg.” Try saying it out loud; it sounds cool.
When my brothers or me want something handed to us, or are maybe coveting a food item the other has, we say ‘maakata’.
‘Maakata maakata cornchip? Maakata maakata moooooo’ means, ‘I can’t reach the cornchips. Please pass me the bowl.’
It sounds like bastardised Maori, but I haven’t been able to find it in a dictionary anywhere. None of us can remember inventing it either.
Do you know about the game The Kingdom of Loathing? It’s a keyboard game. On Easter, the game celebrates a holiday called Oyster Egg Day, where you get an oyster egg basket and collect the oyster eggs in various locations in the game. The eggs have magical powers. Maybe you’re related to Jick?
That reminds me–a poem is passed down in our family:
Poor little Willie in bows and sashes
Fell into the fire and was burned to ashes
Now when the weather is cold and chilly
Nobody wants to poke up Willie.
So as a result, in our family, stoking the fire is called “poking up Willie.”
Ah, Mr Lissar is related to Lilbro!
We were on vacation when he was 3, in one of those hotels where you get all 3 meals but don’t choose the dishes. The waiter brings paella and serves it to Mom. Brings a second paella, serves it to Dad. Then Lilbro exclaims “mine without dirtystuffs!” The waiter looked at the glaring 3yo like it had just spouted horns and Mom said “can you bring him plain rice with tomato sauce please? I don’t think he’d eat the paella.”
That’s what happens when your kids are used to minimalist cooking: they want their food “without dirtystuffs!”
As little kids, one of us said he was full by poking his belly with a finger and saying, “no squish.” That one is still around.
When it’s time to make dinner in a hurry, we grab a bag-o’ from the freezer. You know, that bag-o’-stuff that you throw in the nuker, and out comes supper.
Fat-free egg substance is eggoid. Stuff that isn’t quite cheese is cheezoid. “Piece o’ lime” is a gin and tonic.