Do you have a familect — words or phrases that you use with your family that nobody else would understand — like if you say you "Yosimite'd" dinner because of a funny experience you had camping. Family gatherings are a great time to talk about familects! 🧵 - ThreadSky

grammargirl.bsky.social • 150 days ago

Do you have a familect — words or phrases that you use with your family that nobody else would understand — like if you say you "Yosimite'd" dinner because of a funny experience you had camping.

Family gatherings are a great time to talk about familects!

🧵

Comments

hierath77.bsky.social•150 days ago

In our house any kind of heap of stuff that's in a place it shouldn't be is an Albert. (Comes from Listers 2ft high slime mold in Red Dwarf). So - I left your book on the Albert ; the clean towels are next to the Albert....

karenpalmer.bsky.social•150 days ago

Yes! We say someone (or something) was "procecuted" (pronounced "prock") rather than "prosecuted" because, on a family car trip 25 years ago, a sign in a motel in the middle of nowhere warned of consequences if you took the towels.

paulbelmonte.bsky.social•150 days ago

With us, all birds are chickens
Wood pigeons = chubby chickens
Sparrows = tiny chickens
Tits = teeny tiny chickens
Penguins = chilly chickens

laurenbajek.bsky.social•150 days ago

Oh yeah. On road trips, but ONLY on road trips, animals spotted out the window are moos, baas, neighs, etc.

Also, when looking out the window on road trips, all directions are according to which kid is sitting where. "I see moos out Paul's side!"

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

I love “chilly chickens.” 🐧

wilshaw755.bsky.social•150 days ago

Not among family, no, but as a couple we have our own words & phrases - been doing it for years 🙃

lcwesthaven.bsky.social•150 days ago

When the surly teen was a wee thing, she coined the expression "off the quiche", having presumably misheard sbdy say the more usual "off the leash". I prefer her version and say it frequently.

lexicoj0hn.bsky.social•150 days ago

Whenever we returned to a place we'd visited before, my dad would say "Here we are again cat miaow". As a child he had played Dick Whittington in a school play, of which this was the opening pair of lines. Only my dad had misunderstood the conventions of how lines are presented in a play script

lefttheprairie.bsky.social•150 days ago

We have to be strategic about how we divide teams for party games to minimize the number of inside jokes as clues

emgeekay.bsky.social•146 days ago

We always called a child’s pacifier a “dooey.”

vjjumps.bsky.social•150 days ago

To ‘Wacha’ a fallen ice cube is to kick it under the fridge instead of picking it up.

In honor of an ancient Twitter video where pitcher Michael Wacha did this while looking quite hung over.

nerdybutcute.bsky.social•150 days ago

we refer to the process of starting on one wikipedia article and then clicking links til you wind up somewhere completely unrelated as "penguin-ing," because one day where i started to look up something relatively normal and wound up reading about, you guessed it, penguins

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

It’s always a good day to read about penguins. 🐧

wtfbear.bsky.social•150 days ago

I call that a wiki-K-hole😅😅

snickelfritz.bsky.social•150 days ago

My family doesn't "gather together to enjoy each other's company and maybe play a board game" We're "Famalizing"

snickelfritz.bsky.social•150 days ago

one year, my sister made a big production of making fudge and proceeded to absolutely screw it up so bad we used it as ice cream topping. Hence forth, screwing up making the sweets is "making fudge"

snickelfritz.bsky.social•150 days ago

"How did the cookies come out?"
"I made fudge"

senortardigrade.bsky.social•150 days ago

Another one. My wife and I were lucky to see Mitch Hedberg a couple of times. He has a bit about mumbling insignificant shit to a friend & finally yelling "that tree is far away".

My wife & I say "that tree is far away" whenever we tell each other insignificant stuff that the other doesn't hear.

senortardigrade.bsky.social•150 days ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LEfoDI_rsCc

It's like half way through this bit

senortardigrade.bsky.social•150 days ago

My daughter got a Popsicle stick once that read "Ding Dong, Texas is a real place. Look it up."

We call each other ding dongs or just say "Texas is a real place, look it up" whenever anyone is being stupid or ignorant.

We often quote the Popsicle stick whenever the state is mentioned.

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

That’s great!

lisataylorteaches.bsky.social•150 days ago

My paternal family has LOADS! On the evening before our wedding, my husband-to-be was presented with a book, explaining the most common.
Baby = bassinussinie
Toddler = nennipods
Teen girl = dollipus
Being affectionate because you want something = wausling
Rampaging boisterous play = lomposing ...

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

You’re the second person to tell me today that someone in the family has written it all down in a book. What a good idea!

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

I play familect stories at the end of every Grammar Girl podcast, and sometimes people aren't sure why their family uses certain words. They'll just say, "Grandma always said it, and now we all say it too."

If you're hanging out with family, it's a good time to find out why!

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

If you have a good story, and you want to send it my way for the podcast, you can leave a voicemail at 833-214-4475 or leave a voice chat message on WhatsApp: https://wa.me/18052969928

c0nc0rdance.bsky.social•150 days ago

We refer to any room used primarily for storage as a "Rosie's Room" because my Tia Rosa lived with my grandparents her whole life, and when she passed away, her room was preserved as a sort of shrine & could only be used as a place where you'd stash seasonal decorations, sentimental artifacts, etc.

alttag.bsky.social•150 days ago

When we’re being fancy, we set out a “chartreuse board” of meats, cheeses, fruit, etc.

renboyle.bsky.social•150 days ago

We say "hardblard store" instead of hardware store, because I misheard something once, in the exhausting weeks after a big housefire. I knew I'd misheard, but pretended I was confused because I knew it would make everyone laugh and we needed a laugh.

quandtuniverse.bsky.social•150 days ago

when i was a baby, whenever someone knocked over something liquid, my mom would say in a singsong: "[name] valdez! [name] valdez!"
i didnt realize that was a joke on the exxon valdez oil spill until I was much older 😂

quandtuniverse.bsky.social•150 days ago

then years later my mom met the actual CEO of exxon and told him this like a charming family story 😂

msz0.bsky.social•150 days ago

For ages, our family would say: “or the garbage man” whenever we were pondering something unknown (or unknowable). Apparently, one day my grandmother heard some noises outside the front door, and, after a while, she looked up and finished her thought out loud: “or the garbage man”

kimberlyhudson.bsky.social•150 days ago

My uncle compiled a dictionary of these words and phrases particular to our family, but the one we use the most is “fruster,” which means to waste time in a way that you think is useful but others do not. “Dad’s in the garage frustrating with that old eight track player.”

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

What a fun thing for your family to have!

oplopanax.ca•150 days ago

My Search and Rescue team has these, they're like a family to me.

The least rude one is "ferkling/firkling" which is the busy but slow process of getting ready for a hike or ski that seems to take half an hour no matter what.

janfreeman.bsky.social•150 days ago

When my mom made fudge that didn't set up properly, she would call it "spoon candy," and we didn't mind at all that we had to eat it with spoons.
Also, on winter days we'd rub our feet on the carpet so we could touch a sibling and give them a static electricity shock, which we called a "poke."

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

A pre-Facebook poke. :)

ckjohnsonbk.bsky.social•150 days ago

“Sam’s cookies” were Christmas cut-out butter cookies with mace and frosted with lemon glaze. The recipe was from our neighbor, who had a poodle named Sam that I loved. Thank you, nameless neighbor!

deg13.bsky.social•150 days ago

'jennies' for trackie bottoms...down the Jennifer Lopez's velour tracksuit era

tomduncombe.bsky.social•150 days ago

"Christ, I never saw anyone come rollllllllin' in" and "Where are my torrrrtilllllas"

efrex.bsky.social•150 days ago

We refer to undercooked dishes as “sarah-michael chicken” (not actual names) due to a meal that friends of ours served us some 25 years ago.

For reasons long lost to the mists
of time, frozen hash browns (a breakfast staple for years) are referred to by our offspring as “binocular cake.”

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

People’s names like that are a whole class of familects! And now I’m curious about the binocular thing too.

wordyanchorite.bsky.social•150 days ago

We 'swizzle off' (take a quick shower) on hot summer afternoons, but no idea where it comes from!

leahwrenn.bsky.social•150 days ago

My family talks about a “runcible spoon” meaning a spoon with holes in it (I guess some folks call this a slotted spoon?). I thought this was standard usage. My husband disagreed.

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

I love the story of the runcible spoon! Lewis Carroll made up the word, and eventually it became a real thing.

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/qdtarchive/what-is-a-runcible-spoon/

efrex.bsky.social•150 days ago

Your husband needs to improve his literary references. From “The Owl &
the Pussycat”:

“They dined on mince/ and slices of quince/ Which they ate with a runcible spoon”

leahwrenn.bsky.social•150 days ago

It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard of a runcible spoon, it’s that he didn’t think it meant a spoon with holes in it.

wendella.bsky.social•150 days ago

Yep. Like migid (hard 'g'), which we started using while living in Mongolia to refer to the upset stomach we got after eating old sheep.

M(utton)
I(nduced)
G(astro)
I(ntestinal)
D(istress)

We use it now for any upset stomach, either as migid or just igid...

mkinthehouse.bsky.social•150 days ago

Strawberry jam is ladybug jam because my grandmother used to make homemade strawberry jam and I thought the strawberries were ladybugs. Because of course that’s what ladybugs taste like.

mkinthehouse.bsky.social•150 days ago

Rest stops are rest pics in my family because when we caravanned with my grandparents on road trips we’d always have a picnic lunch at the rest stop.

submergedtapes.bsky.social•150 days ago

"Doing a Susan Price" which is soaking the oven trays rather than washing them up 😂

mylocat.bsky.social•150 days ago

“Panamax” to describe anything made as large as conditions will permit, particularly carry-on suitcases and houses at the upper end of zoning standards.

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

Good one!

kestrelgirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

My family goes "potchin'", meaning to shop as an activity. Not quite window shopping, because you might buy something, but you're not going out for anything in particular, either. You're just potchin'.

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

Interesting! Do you know the origin story?

kestrelgirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

Nope! It goes back to at least my grandfather's German grandmother. Apparently she also introduced "lagniappe" to the family, which we just accepted as German for "a little extra" until realizing fairly recently it's actually French!

shannagermain.bsky.social•150 days ago

We have petrified/electrified/sanctified/irradiated/etc rice because one year I could not remember the name of our family dessert -- glorified rice -- and now we just call it anything with "ied" on the end of it and we all know what it is. 😂

terrihd.bsky.social•150 days ago

My daughters — 26 and 22 — have taken to calling anything that drops out of the group a fallen soldier. A broken match, dropped ice cube, bit of something that didn’t make it into the pot … fallen soldiers all.

illimij.bsky.social•150 days ago

When my mom would call out for my dad when he was somewhere else in the house he would always respond "hup" and then when she transmitted her request he'd respond "ho." And so we still "hup" and "ho" each other as siblings. Mimicked mom alot because she had a deep GA accent living in Illinois.

wintermute115.bsky.social•150 days ago

When I've gone a day or two without shaving, my stubble is "spices"

A cluster of grapes is a "grine".

thatandromeda.bsky.social•150 days ago

I mean, they’re all things Mx17 said at one point while working out English, right? We turn on the yight and eat yunch. We drink pointy water (seltzer) and occasionally eat doom ham (they couldn’t remember “prosciutto”).

kencf0618.bsky.social•150 days ago

“It must be Uncle Charlie!” to unexpected knocks on the door. Maternal grandfather’s brother, vanished during the Great Depression.

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

Sounds like they made something funny out of something sad. Hearty folk who survived that era!

kencf0618.bsky.social•150 days ago

Family lore has it that he's buried back on the farm.

drewbryan20.bsky.social•150 days ago

My family had its own word for "poop." We called it "gurgey" (hard g's). The origin of this word is a mystery; I have never heard it in other families or found it in any dictionary. Curiously, none of us have ever used it as adults in our separate homes, so I guess it is a one-generation thing.

catgrimm.bsky.social•150 days ago

scrimscram drawer = the drawer with odd bits.

christianblohm.bsky.social•150 days ago

Funny, this is almost exactly a german word: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krimskrams

catgrimm.bsky.social•150 days ago

This makes sense though for us: we moved to Germany when we were 10 (my sister) 12 (me) and my mum, 45 with no German among us. (Except for German dad). A lot of our familect became a mix of Australian English and (often faulty or imaginative) German.

hierath77.bsky.social•150 days ago

The Small Things Drawer

nothhart.bsky.social•150 days ago

My mom's side of the family calls duvets "blimos" and German-style square pillows "blimo pillows". We have no idea where the heck that came from.

kristinkopf.bsky.social•150 days ago

Maybe from German (via French) "Plumeau"? Your pronounciation mirrors that of several German dialects. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumeau

nothhart.bsky.social•150 days ago

My mom's parents are from the Rhineland region of Germany, so I think you're probably right that it's a corruption of plumeau. Thanks for linking to that!

sunnystitcher.bsky.social•150 days ago

My parents repeated a line from maybe a Woody Allen film all through the 90s, which I still don't understand & when I saw the film once, I didn't even think the joke landed on that line. I think it was a Madeline Kahn line. Anyway, it was their little joke to say "Don't speak!" In a melodramatic way

sunnystitcher.bsky.social•150 days ago

Possibly a line from Young Frankenstein.

efrex.bsky.social•150 days ago

Bullets over Broadway, no?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r-yGbi0ycss

sunnystitcher.bsky.social•150 days ago

YES THANK YOU. My parents are both dead, so it's impossible to ask them to remind me the name of the film they quoted thar cracked them up so much, while mystifying everyone else.

efrex.bsky.social•150 days ago

Glad to help! It’s the only Woody Allen film I ever saw in the theater (and I’m not sure I need a second hand to count all the ones I’ve ever seen) but that line is a pretty good running gag, as I recall…

purplesaurusrex.bsky.social•150 days ago

Lucy salad is a classic midwest marshmallow pineapple grape walnut jello absurdity so named after the one year the dog Lucy got into and ate the whole thing.

debrawexler.bsky.social•150 days ago

There’s a line in “Miracle on 34th Street” where a character says (in a ridiculous New York accent): “That’s the worst kind of ism—commercialism.” And anytime someone in our family is vaguely annoyed we always say, “that’s the woyst kind of ism.” We’ve been doing this for 30 years, as if it’s normal

sbisson.com•150 days ago

Yes. We have the concept of “the full Auntie Gladys”: when given the choice of custard, cream, or ice cream with dessert you answer “Yes” and take all three.

irregular-polymath.bsky.social•150 days ago

My ex had English as a second language, and sometimes used technically-correct words in odd ways. Though we have long parted ways, in my household kitchen tongs will always be "THE CLAMPS!!!" (yelled as in that one robot from Futurama)

mylocat.bsky.social•150 days ago

In our house, the tongs are “the gitters” (because you “git” things with them). Named by 3-year-old me and it stuck.

dozugeo.bsky.social•150 days ago

my sister and I used to sleep in the same room as kids and we had code words to say we didn't want to talk anymore and wanted to sleep...
"Piano" = you can talk to me, "cello" = no more talking, plus some made-up words that meant "you can whisper quietly" or similar specific commands

katelynbruhn.bsky.social•150 days ago

Poop o poop
K

katelynbruhn.bsky.social•150 days ago

Omg this was a pocket post. But I’m gonna leave it up for lols. Happy Xmas Bluesky.

grammargirl.bsky.social•150 days ago

🤣

dungeonfacts.bsky.social•150 days ago

Unruly bits of hair sticking up that need to be combed down are "wiggies".

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