I think every family has words that are in common usage amongst themselves - especially when children are in the mix - but rare or unheard of otherwise.
We pass around a lot of Rich Hall’s sniglets, like “Esso-asso” or “bleemus”, but we also have our own words:
Conventure - An excursion, no matter how small or how grand.
Beego Money - Cash consisting solely of coins.
Dee-dah-doos - McDonalds.
Nu̇nny - The soft satin edging on blankets. Dogs, cats, and rabbits have ears made of similar material.
Bonkyhead - Someone acting like an idiot. The bonkyhead is crispy.
ambervalence, the feeling you get when the traffic light turns yellow and you’re at such a distance from it that you have trouble deciding whether to continue through or stop.
Umbri-Aago was the guy who turned on the lights when we weren’t home. Lights were on a timer, but it was cooler to have a boogie-man sneaking around the house.
A word I always thought was made up that my folks used:
Charette…a difficult situation. My Dad got it from one of his bosses who would proclaim something “charette city.” Apparently it’s a real word.
Chiefly North American (originally Architecture). A period of intense (group) work, typically undertaken in order to meet a deadline. Also: a collaborative workshop focusing on a particular problem or project; (Town Planning) a public meeting or conference devoted to discussion of a proposed community building project.
It also defines it as an obsolete term for a carriage, wagon or chariot, and says the modern definition is “probably originally with reference to the former custom among French architecture students of using a cart to carry their work on the day of an exhibition”.
“First one out of the shoe.” When I first heard it as a kid, that’s what I thought the person was saying (instead of “chute”), and that’s the way I would repeat it when the opportunity arose. Even after I found out what they really said some years later, I still kept with “shoe.”
How about “pandeve”. It’s a mashup of Pandora and Eve. It’s a person who believes that life used to be easy and would still be easy now if not for . . . fill in the blank.