I am feeling bop (how do you umlaute, anyway?) today, and in need of boobing, so I really appreciate this thread.
Rick and I use one we picked up from NYPD Blue–sort of. There was a special on the making of Blue and Dennis Franz told a story about how they wrote a sentence for him to say with a made up word in it. The line was something like “Look at the fatagus on her.” The censors objected, saying it was obscene, even though it was made up. :rolleyes: Anyway, we adopted it to mean one’s belly, which is especially useful for us, as that is where we both gain weight, etc, as in “I need to lose some fatagus.”
Osgie introduced us to the word “geeters”. I think it means monster- something that’s goinga geetcha. Her father made it up. Mr. Lissar thinks it’s wonderful.
My best friend adds “full” to lots of words, as in “I’m so happyful”, or “That was foodful”.
Pidleys = small items on the floor that make the room look messy.
She also invented “crudzies”, which defy description. Crudzies are the things that accumulate under the bed or in the couch cushions. Growing up I assumed that crudzies were what made the vacuum cleaner strain when you ran it over certain places.
The crack between the wall and the side of the bed was referred to as the “draino” by my sister and me. It made sense to us since things always had a way of disappearing through it. Like dolls and toys we’d take to bed. To this day, we still make reference to the “draino”. I’m laughing just thinking about it.
Egga-Degga ~~can mean either [list=a]
[li]An Alligator[/li][li]My Father’s feet. Which, as small chidren, we would “fight with” while pretending they were alligators.[/li][/list]
“Slurm”–one of those gooey worm shaped fishing lures that come in a variety of unlikely colors, some with glitter.
“bochinni”–ass crack. “Peter, pull up your pants, your bochinni is hanging out.” Pronounced “bow-key-knee.” Sounds kind of italian to me, which explains my spelling.
“pyukka”–cat vomit. Noun or verb. “Mom, Misty just pyukka’d all over the rug.”
“basin”–when you have a beer belly or an otherwise fat stomach.
“sluck”–the lint and bits of thread that get stuck in the “hook” side of Velcro.
These are excellant words! I can’t imagine how I’ve gotten by without them in my personal dictionary.
Do words that have had their meanings twisted count? In my family we call nightgowns ladies. When my sister and I were teeny, we looked so elegant in our frilly nightgowns that we resembled society ladies in ball gowns according to our parents. It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized lady wasn’t actually another word for nightgown.
Currently, boots is the word for anyone who’s a bit sad or unlucky. “Poor boots has a hurt paw.” “Boots-boots really needs a hug.”
Pootles is the word you use for when things go bad. “Pootles! I missed the bus.”
Feeling sad and in need of comfort in our house is smucky. “How was your day?” “It was awful. I feel smucky.” A small amount of food is a gluff. “Do you need some milk in your coffee?” “Yeah, just a gluff.” My favorite, though, is what we call dogs. It started as a nickname for our dog, but now it’s any animal of the canine profession, they’re mumpawumpas.
I passed “niff-naw” on today! My friend and I were talking about a discontented couple we knew, and I explained this thread to her briefly and then explained the word. She said that it sounds exactly like what it means. I hope it gains more common usage! It’s an excellent word. It makes me think of how people will pick lint off you when you’re not in a mood to be touched and it’s terribly annoying.
Two from my family:
From when my parents lived in Canada (before I was born) and everything was written in English and French, we have “bien agite.” (Apologies if this is misspelled, I’ve never seen it written.) Although it was on packages and such under “shake well,” and they knew perfectly well what it meant, somehow “bien agite” changed to refer to people. If somebody is very worked up over something, they are bien agite. An unexpected visitor can make me bien agite.
The second one comes from when my dad interned at a psych ward. This would have been in the early seventies, I believe. One of the patients had been in the ward for a very long time and his sense of the modern world was rather out of date. One day he received a nice hat as a gift. When he put it on, he was pleased with the effect, and announced, “I look just like Fred Astaire’s uncle!”
In our family, therefore, to look like Fred Astaire’s uncle is to be quite well dressed indeed.
"Rocket Surgeon" - This one came from my girlfriend’s sister, who was chewing her husband out over the phone one night. She made some remark about him not being a “brain scientist”. Basically, she crossed the two common phrases about being as smart as either a “brain surgeon” or a “rocket scientist”. So I asked her if a brain scientist was anything like a rocket surgeon, and now it’s just kinda stuck for a way of saying that someone’s not too bright, or that they said something incorrectly.
blogey: adjective (blow-gee with a hard g)
A combination of bloated and logy (which means lethargic).
Use: I’m awfully blogey after pigging out on Thanksgiving.
My sister and I initially thought my mom made up the word “logy” because we’d never heard it before, and it morphed into “blogey.” Everyone in my family uses it now.
It has absolutely nothing to do with web logs aka blogs. Those are the only google hits I got, so its proper usage hasn’t extended too far.
When I was a kid, every time you’d lose something and swear you put it in location X (from whence it had disappeared) but had to practically tear the house down to find it my grandmother would say “Yahootie took it.”
My mother had a slightly different use. Whenever something was broken or eaten that wasn’t supposed to be she’d ask “Who did this?” and like children everywhere my brother and I would both deny everything. She’d sarcastically say “Ah, so Yahootie did it then?”
Yahootie is probably the one who lives in your drier and makes sure you never have any matching socks too.
My family also uses “fantabulous”, which feels so natural to me to say that I feel sure someone else has thought of it.
I add “ma” randomly to words: such as “examalent”, “saxamaphone”, or “spagemati”. (excellent, saxaphone, spaghetti)
My grandmother is the queen of coming up with words, though not so many have made it down to me. The two that spring to mind are…
Blogging (just noticed that this now has a real meaning): Vacuuming. My mother thought it was the real word until she offered to ‘blog’ her friend’s house.
Wug (pron with a ‘u’ like in could): Cat. I asked where this comes from and my mother replied that it rhymes with ‘Pug’. After I gave her a blank state, she explained that this is an approximation of ‘Puss’.
Humour that is gnorps (the “g” is pronounced) in my family is humour that is very lame. I think there also was a planet Gnorp where all humour was such, but I’m not sure anymore.
And my friend came out with Snarktopus. I assume the meaning of that is clear.
Woo-hoo! Thanks, CadburyAngel, I’m thrilled to pass on such a useful word. You really got the concept I didn’t explain very clearly – I have, in fact, described it as “picking at each other” sometimes when trying to define it.
I just thought of another one: besnorkeled. This is something I just made up – it means distracted and confused – not in a fit state to settle down and pay attention. I used it one day in tap class and now it’s a running joke there. (One of my fellow students wrote “guess you were just besnorkeled when you broke your ankle,” in the get-well card they sent.)
Great entries, all! I especially like Mirror Image’s sluck – one of those words you don’t realize you’re lacking till someone provides it. It sounds like sluck is very closely related to flug (rhymes with “hug”), which is lint, etc., such as gets caught in the corners of the pockets of a sweatshirt.
Stod (alternately, stad). Noun, rhymes with god. Any of the numerous and easily-dispensed-with disposable foes, plowed through in action movies and video games.
My sister and I call french fries “fer-fers” (since they’re often abbreviated fr. fr.)
My mom tried to say it, and got it wrong. She called it “free-frees.”
We now use both terms interchangeably.
When I was in college, we always asked somebody going into town to “bring me a searcy” (pronounced sur’-see). It meant “bring me back a little something, just because.” I’ve carried that over into my post-college life, and most of my family uses it too, as in “I brought you back a searcy from my trip to Savannah!”
burundi, we used the word “noo-noo” in our home too, but it was our term for breastfeeding.
Adoptamom II, we use beautimous all the time! It’s a cool word!
katie1341, we use a similar word for illness–epizooky (my hubby always calls it “epizooky of the blowhole”)
When we see someone driving a car that has accident damage, we say the car’s been “boodlestruck.”
A snobby, snide person is termed Mr. or Ms. Van Astorbutt
Doing something just for the hell of it, my husband says is doing it just for “T-A-D.” I have NO idea what this means, but his dad always said it and now he does too!
Squinks- Pieces of styrofoam used for packing and shipping. A friend of mine uses this one. Bizza-bizza- Cat testicles. Same friend uses this one. Any cat that has been neutered is “debizzed.” Snarf- A word my sister came up with, meaning to eat quickly, devour.
