Family expressions

[vilakins]

toft_froggy did a very entertaining post about family words and phrases, and I decided to do one of my own. Anyone else?

Family expressions

Squawmish: about to vomit. This was used almost exclusively for car-sickness as in "Stop the car, I'm sqwawmish!" It wasn't till I left home that I found out it wasn't a real word. My theory is that my mother blended "squeamish" and "nauseous". When we were in Greece, my sister and I were delighted to meet a Canadian guy from Squamish (said pretty much the same way). He was very bemused by the entertainment value we got out of it.

[Edit] nautile26 in Australia uses it the same way, and I found a Newfoundland children's book that uses it too (scroll down). I am intrigued (and have maligned my mother).

Profitables: profiteroles to anyone else. My mother had great difficulty with the word and it always came out that way, so that's what I still call them. But not in public.

Mitzi Bishop: a type of Japanese car. Eh, I might as well get rid of all the mother-coined words up front. She even had a Mitsubishi, but could she say it? It was always a hutch-back too, not a hatch-back, even though she never carted rabbits about in it.

I gave birth to you: the chorus we kids replied with whenever she played the martyr, which she did. A lot.

Catted: immobilised because of a cat on one's lap. "Can you make a cup of tea? I'm catted." Of course, both of us are often catted so the tea has to wait.

Gobble-spoon: a table-spoon. Because you can eat a lot more with one.

Gadget lust: desire for the latest tech, usually shown by Greg. The latest iPhone is being released here this week at 00:01 Friday, and we're the first in the world to get it. Some with terminal gadget lust are already queuing with sleeping bags and supplies. Greg considered it but the plans that go with it are far too expensive.

-taries: an intensifying suffix added to other adjectives, rhyming with Indian saris. Examples are yummytaries, nummytaries, burnytaries, freezytaries, you get the picture. Now only surviving in the first two forms. Speaking of which, why do people not in North America spell it "nom" these days? It's num, dammit, the way it's said (which is very like the American nom = nahm).

Lecky-B: an electric blanket. Coined by my sister.

Snoozle: a nap, a sleeplet. Other words can be given the attribute of smallness by the addition of '"-le". (Is "little" a little lit?) If you do that with names though, you have to add an S. E.g. Greggles, Nickels, Jennles...

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahvely: an adjective used for something kitsch or twee. Ordinary length "lovely" has no hidden meaning. This one came from Greg's two older sisters who use the vowel length quite unironically. When they spoke to me on Skype from Bulgaria last month, they used it a lot and it was hard not to laugh.

Not lost but gone before / cashed his last cheque / sucked a kumara / karked it: died. At high school, my sister and I collected euphemisms for death and the first two are my favourites plus two Greg uses. No, I don't know what a kumara (sweet potato) has to do with it. I think it came from TV. The cheque one will, um, cash out soon seeing hardly anyone writes them now.

I'm old, let me through: used for grumpy old people who think they're owed for how long they've lived, because I heard it once in a post office queue.

There are probably more but I'll stop there.

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Mine nearly all come from Irish Granny and are unrepeatable or at least embarrassing. However....

Where was your arse last? Said to someone who is looking for a thing and can't find it: rough translation: "It'll be where you left it, you fool".

We've all got holes in our arses, you know Said to anyone who is putting on airs and acting as if he's above his company.

I cringe even recollecting the tactless old bat....

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

{snicker} But do you hear them coming out of your own mouth as you get older...? That's when you really cringe :(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, there were some I decided to keep to myself. Those are mild compared. :-)

[jecono.livejournal.com]

Haha - so funny! I'm thinking of similar things that we mights have had in our family - but I guess my father payed too close attention to our pronounciation. There is one thing, though, my middle brother just couldn't remember the word for peas and always said "I won't eat those little green balls".

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Awww, but very descriptive!

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Those are funny.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I loved toft_froggy's. I hope this becomes a meme.

[babel.livejournal.com]

Er nevermind, I read that wrong.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That's OK! I know it's from LOL cats, but the way it's spelled isn't how we say it, so it's strange when British people use it. I wonder if the sound (yum, num, US nom) is universal like mama, papa, dada, and all those baby words that become names for parents. The French is "miam" which sounds like "myum". I've asked people but they can't tell me.

[babel.livejournal.com]

I say yum and num (with an uh sound, not an ah). Sometimes nyum. I'd only seen/heard nom on lolcats and people mimicking lolcats, so I suppose that's why I'm confused. XD

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I say it that way too. Rhyming it with "mom" in US English isn't that far off, and I assume makes it a longer (and more catlike?) vowel. It just doesn't sound right in my dialect.

[nautile26.livejournal.com]

They are excellent. I love "catted". And "Mitzi Bishop hutchback"!. My mother-in-law always orders a "cup of chino" at the coffee shop. :)

"Squawmish" is familiar to me though, with the same connection to car sickness.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

My sister's mother-in-law doesn't know why we laugh when she suggests lunch at the nice little brassiere down the road.

REALLY? You actually know the word "squawmish"? [excited bounce] You're the first outside my family, though I admit I haven't exactly gone round asking people. Maybe it wasn't a made-up family word. Wow.

I googled but all the references I found were to that place in Canada. No, wait, I added "sickness" and found this (http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:8O725fdCsdYJ:astore.amazon.com/explorenewfou-20/detail/0689864043+squawmish+sickness&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=nz). That makes it NZ, Australia, and Canada. It's not in the dictionaries though.

OK, I'm going to ask the World Wide Words guy.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Actually, it seems from my reading to be surprising how many of them do appear (either exactly the same or in a recognisablly changed form) in more than one family...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Of mine, or others in general? Perhaps they're vestiges of older English preserved in different places.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Family words or catchphrases in general (most of yours sound fairly unique to me :)

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

It's in the OED, given as US colloquial

SQUALMISH

Also squamish, squawmish. [Var. QUALMISH a., perh. influenced by SQUEAMISH a.]

Nauseous, qualmish, queasy.
1867 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Notebk. (1935) vi. 59, I am..very tired of being seasick... All I take an interest in is being squalmish and getting to shore again. 1902 S. CLAPIN New Dict. Americanisms 381 Squawmish, in parts of New England, said for queasy. 1944 H. WENTWORTH Amer. Dial. Dict. 590/1 Squalmish, squamish.., squeamish, qualmish. 1948 Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 24 Jan. 4/4, I am not only not interested in food but maybe a little squalmish at the very thought of it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

So it's American! I wonder where we got it from. When they left Europe, some of our family went to the US (Buffalo) and others came here, but there's been almost no contact since. Perhaps it was picked up from a sailing ship crew on the way out and assumed to be a normal English word.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Clever! So it originated in a combination of 'Squall' and 'Squeamish'.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Yep, we have a heap, both hand-me-downs and developed more recently...

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahvely: That's a good one, sort of like 'teddibly teddibly' which a friend used to use in that tone of voice...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We stretch it out ridiculously. I just hope we never do it in front of his sisters.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

enjoyed the link to the original, and yours as well :0)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I bet you have some good ones with the terms you use, like fun vampire.

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

Catted is a great term. I think I shall spread it around.

We used to use the term lecky-blanky in our family, for that essential piece of ChCh equipment.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's used daily here.

I don't even have one! They worry me and I warm up fast under a feather duvet. We had them as kids though.

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

I acquired the expression 'being catted' from an ex-boyfriend, who I guess used to use it with his family. It was used in the same way, to indicate that you couldn't get up because you have a lap full of cat.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh no, we're not original! ;-) It's probably been invented all over the world in different languages. It's so needed.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Hah! The phrase my mother used anytime anyone balked at an unreasonable demand of hers was 'Every hair on your head owes me.'

Mmm... most of my family phrases that I recall off-hand aren't at all polite.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a tough one. I decided as a kid that I'd never have any of my own--TV's enough to put you off and I loathe those pregnant woman about to give birth scenes--but if people choose to go through the agony, that's up to them. The results are innocent and not to be blamed.

Other phrases I was subjected to were "After all I've done for you" and "If a mother can't tell you (in other words destroy your self-esteem) then who can?" Who indeed?

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

My mom was big on guilt-trips. 'You'll be sorry after I'm dead' was a biggie.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, that one I've heard too, and it's open to so many sharp answers too.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

The urge to snap back was tough to overcome. ;^)

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Thank you - haha, but my language uses the same equivalents, just those phrases of yours are so good!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Do you have a version of "catted"? Because I'm now wondering if it's been invented all over the world, it's so necessary.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Hmm...our language usually uses more tham one word...not this one, no. We say that the cats hev us humans "ochočené" - with similar meaning but your expression is more precise for it.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Heh, these are great. I like Lecky-B - we used to say 'sodges' for sausages, after my youngest brother's mispronunciations, but now he's been saying 'sausages' for many years now and we don't say 'sodges' quite as often anymore.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

'Sodges' is cute! For a few years, chocolate fudge cake was "fav'rite cake" because of my brother (although it wasn't any one else's) but it's fallen into disuse.