The Secret Language of Families

March 4, 2009 11:52 AM

Family Words (scroll down, p.9). Do you know what the "Ahh-hee's" are? It describes the feeling you get when you put on a bathing suit that is still damp. What about a "winterpepper?" That would be a backwards flip (opposite of somersault). "Eeksler?" The lever on an ice cube tray, so-called because of the sound it makes. Daw daw, doot-do, to-do to-do, taw taw, der der, drit-drit and hoo-hoo? All refer to the tube of cardboard inside a roll of toilet paper. Featured on NPR's A Way With Words (full episode).
posted by vronsky (76 comments total)

I love stuff like this, thanks vronsky.
posted by Mister_A at 11:54 AM on March 4

"Urf" is anything to do with computers. (From a mishearing/misremembering of "rem" as in "rem out those statements" on the part of my wife.) "Hitlows" are those triangular ceiling slices in the corner of a converted attic space.

We also have a whole slew of multi-purpose words where the actual meaning can be any noun or verb (or actually, any part of speech) but it isn't explicitly mentioned at all. You have to get the context. A lame example would be "What do you want on your pizza? Sna?" Or "It was totally bits at work today." Only my wife and I can really do it, but we have an amazing 80% success la.
posted by DU at 11:58 AM on March 4

Christ, it's like a live-action Family Circus cartoon.
posted by orthogonality at 11:59 AM on March 4 [10 favorites]

More like Sniglets only less funny. The great part about family languages isn't how awesome the words are (with a few exceptions) it's the shared history. Which an outsider doesn't have.

Oh and "peachley" is any slow or in-the-way person, which I guess is from a cartoon that had the punchline "Move it, Peachley!".
posted by DU at 12:03 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Anony: unseen person responsible for domestic troubles; Mr Nobody - reminds me of my little sister's imaginary sister, Lemmetink. Keen stuff!
posted by filthy light thief at 12:03 PM on March 4

My daughter used to rock her head to get to sleep. When she got up in the morning the back of her head would be knotted up into an unholy mess of matted tangles. She came up with a name for it, her "heinck."

I guess she repeated this to the daycare staff when it happened after nap time, because one day I overheard one telling another about seeing a female street person that weekend whose "whole head was this massive 'heinck'!"
posted by Turtles all the way down at 12:10 PM on March 4

"Mojamatize" (v.) to move quickly. Usually to one of my sons, as in "C'mon, Felix, we've got to mojamatize."

Derivation: Once, a friend was in a cab in Boston and was getting an unusually bumpy ride. He complained. The cab driver swiveled around and gruffly explained "I've got to mojamatize!" My friend assumed this was some local expression meaning to get somewhere fast.

In fact, it turned out, the guy was saying "I've got too much air in my tires", but the first meaning stuck.
posted by The Bellman at 12:11 PM on March 4 [26 favorites]

I'm quite soured on words of this sort. Primarily because things that start off "cute" make their way into common parlance, and grate on the part of my brain that knows better. You can only hear "guesstimate" so many times before wanting to throttle the person who says it. An estimate IS a guess! Granted, it's often an educated and calculated guess, but "guesstimate" doesn't add anything at all.

On the other end of it, when I was young, I called cardboard tubes "ho-hos" because that is what I'd say through the end of the tube. This amused my mom, who would sometimes call them "ho-hos" when speaking to me. This is not something that everyone needs to hear, because it's boring and stupid to just about anyone else. File under "Kids can be cute, but Your Kids are not as cute as you think."
posted by explosion at 12:14 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

Ah, nice. And it'll probably get me to re-read this AskMe thread.
posted by rewil at 12:19 PM on March 4

Along these same lines. Now I feel weird for not having any made up jargon in my family.
posted by Who_Am_I at 12:20 PM on March 4

Mom, I've got to go "grunty!"
posted by ericb at 12:20 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I had my wife calling the combination saw and limb-cutter contraption on a long pole a "whomper-stomper" because that's what my dad used to call it. One day she saw our neighbor climbing a ladder to cut some limbs and offered to let him borrow the whomper-stomper.

She doesn't believe anything I tell her any more.
posted by yhbc at 12:20 PM on March 4 [4 favorites]

An estimate IS a guess! Granted, it's often an educated and calculated guess, but "guesstimate" doesn't add anything at all.

The hierarchy of numbers is as follows:

1) A fact
2) A statistic
3) An estimate
4) A guesstimate
5) A guess
6) A random number
7) Another statistic
posted by DU at 12:20 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Daw daw, doot-do, to-do to-do, taw taw, der der, drit-drit and hoo-hoo? All refer to the tube of cardboard inside a roll of toilet paper.

Good god, people! Is "cardboard tube" just too hard to say? Or are these from the same kinds of people who refer to a remote control as "the clicker"?

I'm trying to recall specific terms my family used for things, but I can't come up with words. We had lots of phrases, including the call "They have comigs" and the response "And cheetahs run fast", taunts such as "Still got your raisin?" and odd contributions from grandparents such as "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd have a fine time at the circus."

I am sorry but I don't think I could provide any context for these. So I can't tell you about them.
posted by Spatch at 12:24 PM on March 4

"You can only hear 'guesstimate' so many times before wanting to throttle the person who says it."

And the man who coined that term, "guesstimate"?

That was --

Paul Harvey!

And now you know -- the rest of the story!
posted by orthogonality at 12:28 PM on March 4 [5 favorites]

We call the remote control the "flipper." I catch loads of shit about this from everyone else I know.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 12:44 PM on March 4

Some of ours:
The newen days (vs. olden days)
Critters: Spongy Breadeye, Purple Bushmust, Spotted Clook.
Dirt: Meal between dinner and dessert (see brunch)
OK ya sure: Yes.
Pooder: Computer
Backyume: Vacuum
Resanot: Restaurant
Hostible: Where mom goes to have the baby.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:46 PM on March 4

Hmm, I think all of our are fake swears. (Favorite: fuuuuuuu...shtugina.)
posted by JoanArkham at 12:47 PM on March 4

You know how some screen doors have a horizontal metal or plastic bar attached at around waist height, so you can push on the door without busting right through the screen? Those are called "Wally-guards," named after a dog who died long before I was born.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:51 PM on March 4

I started early on calling my wife "my love"--pretty uninspiring. Then somehow it got corrupted into "my loaf." Then, at some point, I just left off the "my," so just leaving "loaf." Then I started barking it out at random intervals: "LOAF!" Causing her to yell back: "LOAF!"

In summary, we are nauseating.
posted by Skot at 12:53 PM on March 4 [17 favorites]

My brothers and I use the term "cold rushes" to refer to the shivers you sometimes get when you're a bit frightened or suddenly cold.

This made me think of the bunch of made-up games that we would play while bored and camping with my father. Among them, we have such classics as:

- Eyelash Frenzy: a game wherein one player must keep his eyes open while the other flicks the open-eyed player's eyelashes back and forth with this fingers
- Lean-To: a 2-player game wherein the players match their palms to each other and progressively move their feet back, essentially using the other as a wall to lean on, always ends with both people crashing to the ground
- The Wrenching Game: 2-player game wherein one player puts the other in a full-nelson, and the player in the hold has to get the other to let go by only thrashing around violently

Oh, the insanity.
posted by King Bee at 12:54 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

OMG Skot, Mr. Arkham and I do the same thing!
posted by JoanArkham at 12:55 PM on March 4

In my house, we have lots of terms for things (in general), like geemerfob and flapdoodle. Flapdoodle usually gets applied to things that move or used to move and are now broken while geemerfob is synonymous with thingamajig.

Obviously, we also spend a lot of time pointing at things.
posted by tommasz at 1:01 PM on March 4

Wuzzle: A balled up, usually damp, towel or item of clothing.

Usage: "Don't leave your shirt there on the floor in a wuzzle!"

This sort of thing makes me all nostalgic for days of playing Balderdash by the fire with my cousins.
posted by There's No I In Meme at 1:02 PM on March 4

We call the remote control the "flipper." I catch loads of shit about this from everyone else I know.

That's funny, because my family came up with the same nickname for it too.
posted by availablelight at 1:13 PM on March 4

"Jesii" - any grouping of objects that depict Jesus. Statuettes, paintings, etc.

"The in" and "the out" - the little driveways that connect parking lots to streets. If you're on the road, it's the in. If you're in the parking lot, it's the out.
posted by cmyk at 1:14 PM on March 4

Some of the ones my family uses are holdovers from my dad's Navy days (like geedunk for any kind of snack). Rah is a monster of some sort (because they go "RAH!"). Picot is fast food, because I liked the sound of it when I saw it on a Mexican indigestion remedy, and would annoy my wife by answering "Picot!" when she asked me where we should eat lunch. There's a reason these all stay in the family. They are dumb (mine, not yours).
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 1:18 PM on March 4

I was going off to college and my parents were looking at my college-issued list of recommended items for my dorm room. Desk lamp, shower caddy, those sorts of things. My mother looked up in a panic and and asked, "what's a you-lap?"

My father and I looked at each other, puzzled. We didn't know what a you-lap was either. Some sort of lap desk? A grooming item? Was I already too stupid to make it in college? My mother pointed at the list frantically -- "it says you need a you-lap! Where are we going to get one?!"

I peeked over her shoulder. My school encouraged me to bring a UL App(roved) surge protector. A U-lap. I brought two.
posted by giraffe at 1:35 PM on March 4

That is totally not what I thought a hoo-hoo was.
posted by captainsohler at 1:38 PM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Reminds me a little bit of intentional mispronunciations.
posted by EnormousTalkingOnion at 1:39 PM on March 4

My husband used to live with a guy who had this tiny dog that would GROWL while taking surpringly gigantic shits. Now when the need arises, we will say: "Back in a few, gotta take a growler."
posted by peep at 1:44 PM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Zongida= like Eureka but much more sarcastic
beedleebeep= small thing, like a funny-shaped button
crapsicornia= a cornucopia of craptacularity
posted by oflinkey at 1:46 PM on March 4

remote controls aren't called flippers - they're called flipperswitchers.
posted by moxiedoll at 1:47 PM on March 4

For years I thought a plastic water bottle was known as a "gurk bottle." I was stunned when I found out no one uses this term.
posted by slogger at 1:48 PM on March 4

We call people whose names we can't remember "fuckstick." I'm pretty it was a later development.
posted by lunit at 1:49 PM on March 4

Good god, people! Is "cardboard tube" just too hard to say? Or are these from the same kinds of people who refer to a remote control as "the clicker"?

Let's go back in time so you can say that to me as a cute, blonde, pigtailed four-year-old. I called them "toot-toots" because that's the sound you make when you hold your lips up to the spent tube from a roll of wrapping paper and go "TOOT TOOT!"

So yeah, big shot, say that to a cute, pajama-clad four-year-old.
posted by mudpuppie at 1:50 PM on March 4

So yeah, big shot, say that to a cute, pajama-clad four-year-old.

Ok.
posted by dersins at 1:59 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

We call meatballs meatbears.
posted by steveminutillo at 2:02 PM on March 4

The.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:14 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I think I mentioned the family term "meedlenoosh" in an earlier thread; I can't remember if I mentioned the family term "nacits" (pron. "NAK-its"), which was my grandfather's acronym for "not a cloud in the sky" that found its way into general use.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:24 PM on March 4

Thanks for the mention of the show! (I'm one of the co-hosts.)

We always get a huge response when we talk about family words. There's tons and tons of that stuff—I mean, just more than one book can hold. People will talk about them until we run out of audio tape. :)
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:35 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

I think Mrs. Benson and I might've coined a new one for ourselves last night.

I was grumbling, under my breath, all angry-like, that something wasn't working on the Tivo remote. Mrs. Benson was only half-listening, and all she heard was...

"Butt-fight!"

She laughed, loudly, for a long time, which got me to say it again and again. It took on meaning as the night went on- a "butt-fight" is something that doesn't work the way you want it to.

This afternoon, I've texted her the word "butt-fight" twice. I hope she's laughing at it.
posted by elmer benson at 2:35 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

EVERYONE calls it the flipper.
posted by snofoam at 2:46 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

My wife's restless leg starts up because she is sleepy, we say that she's "got the twitchies" which, after lots of discussion was established to have come from "the brain worms" which probably came from our dog "Ele the Electric Dingo", which became "Belly", which became "Smelly", which naturally led to "Smelly Bell".

Most of our verbal creations tend towards collective nouns. My current favorites are "An embarrassment of cats" (for when they are all sleeping on your bed and there is no more room for you) or "An assault of [type of food]" (for when you've eaten way to much and feel like you can't move.)

And Zebra Finches are called "Meeps" because that's what they say.
posted by quin at 2:54 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Wow Mo! Cool. I have just started listening to you over the last few months as your show is new to my area, but I have really enjoyed every episode so far. (the last one I heard you were talking about "hosey" as in "dibs", which I see is in the dictionary). And I was just reading your article Sprogs in a Poop Factory from a link I found while putting the post together. My favorite family words are the onomatopoetic ones like "eeksler" and "humma-jumma-jumma" -- a term for a railroad crossing as that is the sound it makes when you drive over the tracks.

Trying to remember any family words I grew up with, and I am mostly drawing a blank, except for the phrase, "laroes to catch meddlers with." Said to a curious child when you were trying to hide something from him, like a box of christmas presents that haven't been wrapped yet. "What's in the box?" "Just a bunch of laroes to catch meddlers with!" I had thought this was just nonsense words, but I just googled it and the first citation I could find was from a novel Leather and Silk, copyright 1891!
posted by vronsky at 3:00 PM on March 4

Valeelee: n. The puckery impression left in flesh by the waistband of a garment, esp. wet bathing trunks.

Ay-hee: n. The shape of the four-lobed cracker in a box of Sociables.

Fahsnint: adj. Very bad, repellent. "Those devilled eggs were fahsnint!"
posted by longsleeves at 3:04 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

My son had some great malapropisms when he was little that have made their way into our speech, too, like:

citronella candles=Cinderella candles, and
concession stand=confession stand

Our favorite: There's a song by Weird Al Yankovich that says, "That's your horoscope for today," which he was sure was actually, "Does your horse go far today?" I remember he was frustrated that Weird Al never got an answer to his question.

Our newest in-joke family phrase is, "I know where the scissors are!" because when our cat escaped to the outside world and came back full of mats, my husband complained about no one having done anything to get rid of the matted fur, and I said something along the lines of, "Well, I put the cat scissors on the washing machine," meaning I was planning to do something about it but hadn't yet. He rightly pointed out that, "I know where the scissors are," is not really an accomplishment in and of itself.
posted by misha at 3:10 PM on March 4

short is borked--old web-design lingo for things going bad that found its way into our house (I lived with co-workers at the time), as in "The server is fried and our short is borked." I blame Coach-Z and the Swedish Chef.

rackafrackin'/raggafraggin'--when something is really frustrating or irritating. Yosemite Sam, most likely.

"Will you enter the hole?" For consoling someone who must willfully make a tough decision that will make his/her life hell for a bit before things get better. Silent Hill.

"The fourth floor has appeared." When things go from bad to worse. Silent Hill.

"'Yes we can!'-ing it" for when Japanese students of English enthusiastically repeat English phrases without understanding what is being said.
posted by incompressible at 3:56 PM on March 4

"laroes to catch meddlers with"

Ah-ha! I can help. We talked about "layers for meddlers and crutches for lame ducks" on this episode.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:06 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Daw daw, doot-do, to-do to-do, taw taw, der der, drit-drit and hoo-hoo? All refer to the tube of cardboard inside a roll of toilet paper.

Fascinating. My family's called them daw-daws since my Dad was a kid.
posted by scalefree at 4:07 PM on March 4

My eldest sister and I pledged to start keeping track of our family's seemingly endless private lexicon, a pledge prompted in part by Simon Hoggart's article Thanks For the Flapping Owls and Other Family Gems. My sister promised to start writing them down; I promised to start posting them on my blog.

And no doubt we'll soon have a humorous phrase in the family lexicon that describes the failure to live up to such pledges.
posted by Elsa at 4:09 PM on March 4

In my family, a clump of hair that sticks up when you get up in the morning is called a "splight," rhymes with "light."
posted by pts at 4:26 PM on March 4

Since my wife is Japanese, it's kind of hard to explain some of the sickeningly sweet phrases that people call there loved ones: honeybunch, snoogums, and so on. Once she asked me to explain what I meant by "my little pumpkin" (yes, I can be nauseatingly precious). I tried to translate it into Japanese, coming up with boku no chiisai kabocha, which, like pretty much all foreign words in Japanese, we shortened down. My pet name for my wife: bonocha.

Feel free to pelt me with rotting produce, thank you, good night.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:27 PM on March 4

rewil, thanks for reposting the thread. That was even more entertaining than the book!
posted by njbradburn at 4:48 PM on March 4

Windchill Wipers........ my son's term for the flappers on the car that clear the windshield.
Chester Drawers.. our daughter's term for the place to store folded clothes
posted by mickeefynn at 5:17 PM on March 4

Our car has a defrogger to clear the inside of the windshield.

My best friend's family can't find anything or learn anything new (depending on context) without the destructions.
posted by scratch at 5:27 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

In my house the cardboard tube for the toilet paper was called "Jesus Christ - put that back in the trash?! It's dirty godammit. "
posted by beccaj at 6:07 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

Well, when I was a toddler, apparently I had a habit of shouting, "peenty bunty sampy" whenever I wanted my mother to make me a peanut butter sandwich (which, she swears, was unnaturally often). Also I called helicopters "heldodoppies," and would always excitedly point them out whenever one flew overhead. So to this day, we call peanut butter sandwiches "peenty bunty sampies" and helicopters "heldodoppies."

Also, probably when I was around the same age, whenever I was finished with a meal I would sit up and declare, "I'm done, take off my bib," which is now a common refrain in my family at the conclusion of a satisfying, yet (usually) bibless, meal.

Also, wow... not only was I unable to make my own peanut butter sandwich, I couldn't even take off my own damn bib (which caught the food bits I couldn't even get in my mouth properly, and which--guess who--my mother then had to wash)? Remind me to give my mother a nice big hug next time I see her.
posted by notswedish at 6:25 PM on March 4

from my family and firends:
galmy - clumsy
bliggle - a facial expression of shy delight (blush+giggle)
booshkas - a cat
jammer - a maneuver
frig - a party
posted by es_de_bah at 7:37 PM on March 4

My family didn't make up words, and instead encouraged proper use of language. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that my vocabulary surpassed that of my peers by grade 3 or so. This is right up there with speaking to children as if they're animals instead of "human beings" (ie: as an adult)
posted by sunshinesky at 7:40 PM on March 4

"My family didn't make up words, and instead encouraged proper use of language."

Aww... that's sad sunshinekey :(


es_de_bah those are great. I'm going to steal bliggle :)
posted by vronsky at 7:47 PM on March 4

Fun stuff. "drit" or maybe even "drit drit" is likely Norwegian (I'm guessing, but doesn't dritsek = shitbag, for instance?).
posted by Nick Verstayne at 7:52 PM on March 4

My family didn't teach me punctuation, so I always make sure to stick a question mark prior to a closing parenthesis followed by a period.
posted by Nick Verstayne at 7:59 PM on March 4

EYELASH FRENZY!

Wow, I love that. My brother and I used to play Blue Dog when we were both home sick. Kind of hard to explain, but it involved a quilt and biting and we had to make sure Mom didn't see us playing or she would know we were well enough to go to school the next day.

But anyway, back to the real topic. Sparkeners = club soda. Now you know.
posted by queensissy at 8:06 PM on March 4

When my sisters and I would misbehave or have bad manners my parents would call us goops.
posted by vronsky at 8:49 PM on March 4

When I was about three years old, I apparently could not properly pronounce "motorcylce" or "Kentucky Fried Chicken". Instead, I offered "motorfuckle" and "Fucky Fried Chicken". It seems I've always been this foul-mouthed.
posted by grubi at 9:13 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

sunshinesky : This is right up there with speaking to children as if they're animals instead of "human beings"...

Oh, come on. A bit of argot brings a family together. That's kind of the entertaining point of it.

And besides, some of us talk to our animals as if they were children, so it all balances out in the end, right?

Seriously, have you ever tried to rationalize with a bird? They just sit there, mocking you... with their ability to shear nuts open with their beaks and, you know, flight and all.

Arrogant, feathery little fuckers.
posted by quin at 9:59 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Oh, and back on subject, In our house, "Murff" is the sound that a cat makes when it wants to get your attention without actually meowing.

As in: "the kitty was murffing at me because it wanted to be fed."

This can be combined with a purr to create what is known as a "purrmurff" which is what cats do when they want something, like to be scratched, but they are unwilling to commit to the act of begging out loud, yet at the same time, they want to impart the urgency of their desire.
posted by quin at 10:13 PM on March 4

My family didn't make up words, and instead encouraged proper use of language. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that my vocabulary surpassed that of my peers by grade 3 or so. This is right up there with speaking to children as if they're animals instead of "human beings."

That's an incredibly ignorant perspective on language. I hope you've learned better since!

Every person in the world makes new words all the time. We tack on affixes, we blend two words, we make compounds, we misspeak or misunderstand and find that, serendipitously, the new word is good and useful. They arise by the billions out of the pens and mouths of the entire population of the planet. True, most live just for a moment and die unremembered, but they are useful all the same and natural part of speaking and writing.

There are many books on this subject, but two I recommend are Hans Marchand's 1969 volume The Categories and Types of Present-day English Word-Formation and Allan Metcalf's more recent Predicting New Words. The latter is perfect for a non-specialist.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:36 AM on March 5 [4 favorites]

"World's Fair load of logs". Yea, I know. It means exactly what you think it means. There is this small (tiny) town in Michigan's UP (say ja to da yoopee, eh?), where there is a trailer load of logs on display. A sign explains that it is about a load of logs the town/area had sent to some World's Fair. It was just a load of logs. Like any other. A friend and I found it extremely hilarious.
posted by Goofyy at 5:33 AM on March 5

dersins, you scare me. But I think that's in a good way.
posted by Spatch at 6:38 AM on March 5

When you create something new or start over after everything around you has totally failed, that's a "Spheonix" - a contraction of sphincter + pheonix. It rises from the asses.

(It's also what we call my brother.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:16 AM on March 5

For the longest time, we called the bottle opener a "Beesch," because a forgotten someone decided that that was the sound emitted by the bottle when it was opened.
posted by spacely_sprocket at 9:06 AM on March 5

My younger sister, around age two, had an excuse or reason for every occasion. "Because mitho." (pronounced mit-ho.) We never understood what it meant, and her efforts to explain ended in frustration. "BeCAUSE! MIT! HO!!" We've used it ever since as an answer to an unanswerable question. ("Why did you put the dog in the washing machine?" "Why didn't you call me when you said you were going to?")

When you want something, you say "Please." When you really want something badly, you say "Pleasonymous."

Breasts are "boobilations." The butt is a "boombossidy."

Why? Because mitho.
posted by cereselle at 10:29 AM on March 5

Why say "cigarette" when you can say burner instead?
posted by porn in the woods at 11:41 AM on March 5

In our house, underwear = "hinterpants".

A bunch of our household words are bastardized German because we both studied it for years.
posted by litlnemo at 2:32 PM on March 5