# Your family's made-up words/phrases **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 8, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682 "2004-11-08T18:16:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![katie1341](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/91b2a8/32.png) [@katie1341](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/katie1341)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/41 "2004-11-09T01:33:58Z")
You know how you’re eating Jello ™ and you get this icky little gristly bit? We call those “duck feet”. And if you get an icky bit in chicken salad, it’s a “chicken nose”. ``` And that disease you get from eating undercooked pork is "trick noses". If one of us was misbehaving, Dad would say, "If you don't knock that off, I'll Austrailia!" which, being the little weirdos we were, we found to be hilarious. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/42 "2004-11-09T01:38:50Z")
“Feeling above average” = gassy This came about when I read a blurb in one of those newspaper-inserted magazines. It was on their health page and asserted that “studies” had shown that a person will fart ten times a day, on average. Such a study boggles my mind. I’m almost glad they didn’t give a cite. I can remain boggled. And I can tell my grown children “I always considered you to be above average” in public and get a smirk from them. ---
**Author:** ![dfqforever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dfqforever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dfqforever)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/43 "2004-11-09T01:43:18Z")
Oh! I just remembered the newest one in our family… “hockey-doctor”… this is what my grandson calls a helicopter. Now everyone in the family calls a helicopter a “hockey-doctor”!! ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/44 "2004-11-09T01:44:30Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > I don’t remember my family having any weird name for mac & cheese, but we did have “Mommy’s Surprise:” cheese and beef inside a Bisquick shell. Yuuuummm. 🙂 Your family must be somehow related to mine. When my parents were married, my dad’s mother gave Mom a hamburger recipe Dad loved. Since my father’s name is Lawrence, the dish became known as “Larry Burgers”. [QUOTEIf you’re around my mother or brother and me, “Idi Amin” is the standard response to any “who” question that you don’t know the answer to.[/QUOTE] Similarly, my brother mark trots out [“Guy Williams”](http://www.whitefoxdomain.com/) as his all-purpose “throw up a prayer” response. As a lad, Mark was quite the fan of both _Lost in Space_ and _Zorro_, and thus figured Guy must have had additional roles Mark didn’t yet know about. ---
**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/45 "2004-11-09T01:58:43Z")
> [@Roland Orzabal](#): > > One of my mom’s best dishes is “hammered chicken”, named by me when I was 13 years old because she pounded it flat with a meat mallet before frying it (thereby rendering it “hammered”). It started as a joke, but it is now the official name of the dish, and we often forget about the :dubious: that mentioning this tends to create among “outsiders”. [Frozen breaded patties of processed chicken breast](http://www.shopfoodex.com/catalog/images/banquchpattiews.jpg) we called _chicken beast_. “I’ll be home at 4, have chicken beast for lunch.” _Chicken in the oven_ was also a specific dish, a midwestern-ized chicken tarragon (i.e. most of the spices were taken out, and a can of soup is involved). **lisacurl** , I often called my cat ‘pud’. He responded to it as often as his real name. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/46 "2004-11-09T02:18:29Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > My father was fond of making up swear words, usually involving “fart”. His more common words were fartblossom and dinglefart. He also used dingleberry a lot but I did not find out he didn’t make this up until I was much older and heard it used by other people. My mom has always said ‘Fiddlesticks!’ when she needs to swear. It was a very rare instance when anything stronger than that came out, and Mom mad was soooo much scarier than Dad mad. 'Cause we loved Mom. (Mom was raised in a very SoBabtist Kentucky household, so swearing was a no-no for girls.) Our mac n cheese was called that, but not being made w/ actual cheese, it was pretty inaccurate. I never had real cheese w/ macaroni until my twenties - can you say Cheez Whiz!? ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/47 "2004-11-09T02:28:16Z")
> [@dfqforever](#): > > When I’m going to the grocery store, I always say, “I’m going to the T-O-E.” > This comes from when I was about 3 years old…my parents would leave me > & my sisters with my MeMa or a sitter—when they were leaving, they would > spell out the word S-T-O-R-E. According to my family, it took me no time at all > to realize that my parents were going to a “store”. So I started saying, "I want > to go to the “T-O-E”…picking up only those letters out of the word S-T-O-R-E. > Now I say T-O-E and my 26 year old daughter does the same thing. I bet there are a bunch like that. Once my very young sister was especially cranky. When I asked my mother what her problem was she replied "She’s just t-i-r-e-d. My defiant sister retorted “I am _not_ t-i !”, not even having a clue what my mother spelled. Henceforth t-i= tired. Another Whitney-ism, we were arguing about something (who knows) and my mother interveined with “You worry about your (some toy, probably) and you worry about yours”. Later that night, I noticed our porkchops were well over cooked (my mother broke the stereotype about Southern women and cooking) and asked my sister about hers. She snapped “You worry about your porkchop and I’ll worry about mine!”. “You worry about your porkchop” = mind your own business ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/48 "2004-11-09T02:36:21Z")
5 boys in our family, all born within a 9 year span. We have tons of these. These are still used to this day, even though I’m the youngest at 34. I’ll only include the oddest, otherwise we’ll be here all night. **Beelers**. Any type of detritus that gets in side the tent or sleeping bag. Can include dirt, rocks, cookie crumbs, sand, etc. **Neakuponapider and mashit**. The act of killing a spider. One of my brothers couldn’t pronounce the letter “s” at the beginning of words. **Buggus**. Hockey puck **Crawl Space**. The highest level of secrecy that can be invoked. **Foostwah mo papee**. Term of endearment for any family pet. Our first family dog was a French Poodle and my oldest brother convinced us all that by saying this he was really speaking in French to him. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/49 "2004-11-09T03:16:02Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > If you’re around my mother or brother and me, “Idi Amin” is the standard response to any “who” question that you don’t know the answer to. My mom’s is “Sandy Koufax,” which oddly enough is usually correct. My mom also contributed “hedgehog” for our large oak sideboard, and I believe “diaplupus of the plux” for any random disease is my grandfather’s. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/50 "2004-11-09T03:20:43Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > We also have a phrase, “Want some cherries?” It indicates that somebody is being repeatedly offered something they don’t want/need, although the offerrers are trying to be kind. LOL! In my family it’s “want a banana?” My maternal grandmother became an insulin-dependent diabetic shortly after I was born, and upon discovering that bananas are a good source of potassium she developed the habit of eating one or two after every meal. There were always bananas at her house, and at some point after dinner you were guaranteed to hear grandma offer you a banana (she was also Italian, so she had to make extra sure that there wasn’t the tiniest bit of room left in your stomach after the 4-course meal she’d just served). She’d offer them at breakfast, too, and og forbid you express having the munchies around her: we sometimes referred to her as “the banana pusher.” _{grin}_ Grandma died five years ago, but I still think of her whenever I eat a banana. And it’s still a running joke on that side of the family. 🙂 > [@Sternvogel](#): > > Your family must be somehow related to mine. When my parents were married, my dad’s mother gave Mom a hamburger recipe Dad loved. Since my father’s name is Lawrence, the dish became known as “Larry Burgers”. That reminds me: in addition to Mommy’s Surprise, we also had “Tuna Burgers:” tuna salad (which was always just tuna and mayo, very plain) on english muffins with a slice of cheese, baked in the oven until the cheese melted and the muffins browned. I have never tried to make Mommy’s Surprise, but I still make Tuna Burgers every now and then (with light tuna and low-fat mayo, of course 😉 ). > [@matt\_mcl](#): > > My mom’s is “Sandy Koufax,” which oddly enough is usually correct. LOL 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![START](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@START](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/START)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/51 "2004-11-09T03:35:53Z")
“Wolf” 1. A person that looks like a gang member or criminal 2. A crazy person 3.Not being dressed and/or groomed well I think my dad came up with that one, it stuck around long enough to get 3 meanings. I haven’t heard anyone else use that term “Wolf” so I’m sure it’s a family word. “Blackish Whitish” 1. A person of mixed race. Invented when I was in elementary school to explain why I looked black and my mom was white. “Grave Itis” 1. Looking or Feeling sick, tired or disoriented. A fake disease made up by my brother when he was younger. The word grave-itis worked it’s way into the family vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/52 "2004-11-09T03:37:21Z")
> [@Random](#): > > also **agree** … Sorry to burst your bubble, but your family didn’t make up ‘agree’. Oh, I’m sorry, isn’t this the ‘My family’s full of smart-asses’ thread??? ---
**Author:** ![smartini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@smartini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smartini)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/53 "2004-11-09T04:40:26Z")
**conordinated as a weatherman** - when our daughter was about 8yo her class visited a news station and that night as she demonstrated to her dad and me how a weatherman did the weather in front of a blank “blue screen” she ended her demonstration with “You have to be really conordinated to be a weatherman.” So now when we trip or something we are “about as conordinated as a weatherman.” ---
**Author:** ![mamakat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@mamakat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamakat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/54 "2004-11-09T05:02:34Z")
In our family, we call mac and cheese mukka mukka. A pacifier is called a nooky, and I didn’t know that wasn’t the real name for it until I was about 15 and was babysitting and kept telling one of the older kids to get me the nooky. I thought they were ignoring me and when I finally got my meaning across, the kid had to tell me that it was called a pacifier, not a nooky! :o This is not a made up word, but I hate the word vagina, so we call it a yoni, which is some tantric word for it or something. All my close friends and family members that we’ve told about it call it that too. We call breakfast brekky, and our whole family now says motor cycle mokie psycha because that’s how my daughter pronounced it when she learned to talk and it was so cute! ---
**Author:** ![TeaElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@TeaElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaElle)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/55 "2004-11-09T09:14:58Z")
General: **Miscombofurated** - something frustratingly messed up. “I tried to untangle the Christmas lights, but they’re all miscombofurated.” **Blippy** - one of those flat rubber discs used to provide a grip to help open jars **Smunch** - the stuff that gunks up the corners of your eyes while you sleep **Gunchy** - the condition of plates which had dried on food residue because they weren’t promptly rinsed/washed after a meal. The TeaMama was forever yelling at us because we let the plates get gunchy. **Spatchdule** - a flexible rubber spatula that both scrapes and spoons, like [this one](http://www.deliaonline.com/picturelibrary%5Cjpeg150/ru/rubbermaid-spatula.jpg). Rachel Ray, from the Food Network, calls these “spoonulas.” I like spatchdule better. 😃 **Ssssssssssspunky** - it’s hard to write out how this is said, basically the ssssp noise is said low and rambling, then the unky part is said really exuberantly. It was our familial pet name for any bouncy, happy pet, especially a dog. Food-related: **Macabees** - macaroni and cheese **Toomanoomle** - tuna noodle casserole, something we ate when we still ate fish **Monkeychunkle** - a sandwich made with crunchy-style peanut butter and jelly **Smushie green** - creamed spinach **Peazlebeazle** - green peas, onions and mushrooms, sauteed together **Standard church dinner** - in African-American churches, it seems that there is a standard menu whenever there is a church dinner, including fried chicken or ham (depending on the season) green beans (or greens, again, seasonally), macabees and potato salad. Whenever I call my mother on Sunday afternoon and find that she’s not home from church yet, I call later that evening to inquire if there was a meal and whether or not it was a standard church dinner. There always was, and it always was. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/56 "2004-11-09T13:43:21Z")
> [@TeaElle](#): > > … > > Food-related: > **Macabees** - macaroni and cheese > **Toomanoomle** - tuna noodle casserole, something we ate when we still ate fish These are my favorite food ones so far, next time I have Mac and Cheese I am going to call it Macabees. I remembered a couple more of our family phrases. Many, many years ago one of the neices dropped a green bean at a family get together/picnic. The family poodle quickly grabbed it and the little girl yelled “hims got a bean!”. That became the family phrase for anything the pets did, whether it was eat a treat or do something cute. That neice is now over 30 and living far away, I think she got sick of hearing “hims got a bean”. My father had a FIAT 850 Spider that we were not allowed to drive. One day my brother left a note about it, I can’t even remember if he borrowed it or moved the car fo some reason, all I remember is he spelled spider “sipder” and from then on, the car was the sipder and those little 8-legged freaks were called sipders, too. Although, it wasn’t quite the same hearing “Eeek, a sipder! Kill it!” ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/57 "2004-11-09T14:44:07Z")
(adding more) **Hot Potato** : Hospital. **Issie-pee-get-tee** : Spaghetti. I used to pronounce it “Sah-petti”, but I must say LilMiss is especially creative. **Pug** : Pacifier. Short for plug. “Hon, pug 'er in, she’s crying”. Goes with **binty** (Sentimental blanket) **Be Tired** : When my dad turned 65 and left his employer, he Be Tired. **Momo-psycho** : Motorcycle. First said by my youngest nephew, is still used to refer to non-crotch rocket bikes. **Needlin’** : Crosstitch. The all purpose answer to any question asked is “Lavender”, “852.555” or “George Washington”. We’re boring. Also, things gone wrong are “all kerfuffle”. Midwestern Polish/Czech family. ---
**Author:** ![MercyStreet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@MercyStreet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MercyStreet)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/58 "2004-11-09T15:07:15Z")
_These are my favorite food ones so far, next time I have Mac and Cheese I am going to call it Macabees._ When you do that, though, a little voice inside says, “You can’t take another family’s word.” I know. I tried to use “creamies” (a friend’s brother’s word for “ice cream”) and finally gave up. I felt as though I were stealing the family’s silver or something. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/59 "2004-11-09T15:26:26Z")
“even the _moose_ isn’t enjoying this!!” Evolution: “This sucks” somehow became “This sucks moose cock!” then of course “This sucks so bad that even the moose isn’t enjoying it!”. ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682/60 "2004-11-09T21:44:18Z")
I stole it from The Grinch, but I say - and so does my whole family - roast beast for roast beef. I’m jealous of all of you! We don’t have special names for stuff! ☹ Some of these totally cracked me up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-familys-made-up-words-phrases/273682.md?page=4)