Adventures in Family Vocabulary
August 06, 2012My husband and I have been married for 24 years, and over
that time we’ve developed a set of words and phrases that serve as a kind of
family shorthand for feelings and inside jokes. Most of them have an element of
humor (good for diffusing sticky situations) and sometimes serve as a sort of
verbal throwing-up-of-the-hands. For your amusement, I share a few of them
below:
“I’m a delicate flower.” Meaning: whatever you’ve asked me
to do is too hard, and I can’t/don’t want to do it. Sounds nicer than “You don’t
really expect me to help you move that furniture, do you?”
“Pay the love toll.” Meaning: Before I give you what you
want/you walk by me/you leave the house, I need a hug.
Hayseed/Nimrod. A hayseed is a person who has done something
stupid, but doesn’t know any better. A nimrod knows better, but does the stupid
thing anyway. With teenagers around, it’s often hard to discern between hayseed
and nimrod behavior.
“Buy yourself a trinket.” Usually said by the lender to the
lendee who is returning change after borrowing money. Sometimes we also say
this when someone outside the immediate family tries to pay one of us back for
something we paid for.
“You kids get off of my lawn.” We say this when we realize
we just said something that makes us sound like old fogies. Usually accompanied
by shaking a fist in the air.
Family vocabulary makes me happy. I feel more connected in
an intimate way to my husband and son, because no one else completely
understands the history and emotional content of our words. Sometimes saying a single word in a certain way diffuses tension, making us laugh instead of
yell or cry.
Does your family have any words or phrases that serve as
family shorthand or inside family jokes?
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| Did someone say HAYseed? |
2 comments
Loved this! I can just hear some of those expressions!!:)
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and I'm glad you enjoyed the post!
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