Language. It’s something we all use. Some of us use it better than others. Some of us disregard well founded grammar rules. Pronunciation and definitions are meaningless dribble. Some of us are far to creative or, dare I say, lazy to use words properly. Some of us like to make up our own vocabulary and expect everyone to comprehend our violent slaughter of the English language.
I, myself suffer violent bouts of language slaughter, mostly after a visit with my beloved parents. Usually, it’s my mom that makes up words. Like last week she told me that a lady in her church was at home suffering from ‘epa-plasia‘. I hadn’t heard of this ‘epa-plasia‘, but I thought that the old lady must be on her death bed for sure. Later, I figured out it was a young woman in her third tri-mester that had preeclampsia. There is no way in hell Mom will ever be able to remember the word preeclampsia or be able to pronounce it, so from now on if a lady is suffering from the dreaded preeclamsia it will forever be known as epa-plasia.
A few weeks ago my dad and I were sitting in the parking lot of the local custard joint enjoying our frozen treats and watching a couple walking their Standard Poodle. Dad and I admired the dog and reminisced about our own Standard Poodle, Thunder, that had been our family pet when I was growing up. Then, it happened, Dad innocently threw out this wing-dinger…..
“Yeah, poor Thunder, he sure did get emancipated in his old age.”
“What? Thunder was emancipated? From what? Dad? I think you mean emaciated.”
“What? Emanciated?”
“No, e-ma-ciated.”
“Oh. Well, I guess he was both.”
Mom and Dad also say these words: End-dustry, Choir-practor, Eye-talion and my favorite Warshington.
Thanks Mom and Dad. I needed something to write about today. I love you best.
Your Favorite and Prettiest Daughter,
April
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These are my golds for the day.
Warsh
Arn
Drive to Kohbee
These are my golds for the day.
Warsh
Arn
Drive to Kohbee
My oldest daughter is dyslexic and she often says things incorrectly. She’s never been able to say “presidential” she always says “povidential.” A lot of her mispronounciations have become favs… especially the ones from when she was little that we still say ourselves…
Wuzzy do wa? (what’s wrong)
brulella (umbrella)
bodations (dalmations)
My husband’s uncle is always doing that kind of stuff. Then he tried to get all smart on us. While camping, we were making pancakes from a box of Krust Eze and he started pronouncing it Kroost Oz thinking it was a German brand or something. We laughed so hard. We still call it Kroost oz just for him!
My husband’s uncle is always doing that kind of stuff. Then he tried to get all smart on us. While camping, we were making pancakes from a box of Krust Eze and he started pronouncing it Kroost Oz thinking it was a German brand or something. We laughed so hard. We still call it Kroost oz just for him!
My mother apparently made up phrases…for example, I had no idea that “get around” wasn’t commonly used to mean “get ready for bed” until after I was married. I was dumbfounded when my husband didn’t understand when I told him I was going to “get around.” Maybe he thought I was casually informing him of my plans to be promiscuous. I tell my kids at night it’s time for them to get around, so I’m proudly passing the confusion on to another generation.
Also, my mom likes to turn nouns into verbs…”oh, I’ve just been lap-topping tonight, checking my e-mail…”
When my Mom started dating her boyfriend Joe she mentioned that he had a daughter that was a paraplegic.
Imagine our surprise when we met Joe and he told us about his daughter who is a paralegal – and a trained ballet dancer.
This weekend I bookmarked your blog for my Mom so she may or may not see this and I may or may not get a call…LOL
Dribble? Do you mean drivel? lol
Just yanking your chain.
My mom will “axe” you questions and put “par ME see ann” cheese on your pasta. lol
You all are killing me.
Jean, the paralegal thing nearly made me wet myself.
April and Rechelle,
I think you should know – your Mama inherited her vocabulary talents from my Mama – her Aunt Ruth.
Our son’s favorite example was when Mom told him that his sister wanted to be a meteorite (meaning meteorologist)! We miss those “Ruthisms”almost as much as we miss Mom.
Love both your blogs,
Your Mom’s Cousing, Dixie
Ooh! I love them choir-practors. My daddy’s one!
lol! when you get emancipated, do they take you to the hospital in an Am-bu-LANCE?
My ex had a word that cracked us up…he didnt know how to pronounce the word “elixir” and would say “ell-ex-EER” One time he was public speaking and mentioned that something was the “ell-ex-EER” of life…cracked me up
Oh yeah, and how about going to Krogers, rather than Kroger?
hahahahahaaaaahhhhheeeeeee LOL.
BWAWWWWHHHHHHAAAA I nearly fell out the first time I heard someone out here say they had
die-ah-bee-teees and had to be carried to the dawkter, meaning they got a ride in the car. I had so much trouble understanding people that I went and bought a hearing aide. I found out that it wasn’t my hearing it was the pronucsikations. The hearing aide is in a drawer some where.
Come play my Dirty Little Secret game!
My MIL makes up some wacky pronunciations for words. She says oldtimers instead of alzheimers and really believes that is correct. TCBY (The Country’s Best Yogurt) was never an acronym it was always Tokebee Yogurt. She has passed down her pronunciation of especially (expecially) to her son and her grandchildren and I can’t fix it no matter how often I correct them. Being from Kansas makes it worse with the whole warsh, hambooger, and crown (for crayon) mess. There are many more and I can see now that I should start keeping track of them for future blog fodder.
Around here instead of asking “Paper or plastic?” grocery cashiers simply ask if you’d like a “beg”.
I’m always tempted to say “Yes, please. On your knees now and make it good.”
I am usually at your sisters blog, but came over here via one of your comments.
You’ve described my parents. Were your parents and my parents seperated at birth??
So my dad consistently says “IT-lee” and “sim U lar” and my mom and her sisters (also separated at birth??) say “warsh clarth” for washcloth. And my mom does choir practic (a singing back doctor?) and “parm EE ZEE AN” cheese, too. Dang, they were taken before I could mention them…
This could be the reason my daughter confused the words mentor and centaur the other day. Genetic word issues.
that’s funny stuff.
my wife always says seal when she is pointing at the lower part of a window, and we usually have to travel up and over those dang heals.
and then there is that game “King of the Hill” that she and her sister call “King of the Mountain” probably to avoid saying “King of the Heal” but really because she is from western Kansas where anything over three and a half feet high counts as an insurmountable summit.
oh…wait, you are my wife, so I guess you already know all that.
Oh yes, my great aunt’s father died of muldible-scolosis, and she tended to get sick too but usually felt better after the doctor put her on ‘biotics.’ She always wished she could go to Hawaya, but the flyin’ would have got on her nerves. She also had to be carful not to it in a draff because made her artheritis act up.
I wrote a post called, Things We Call by the Wrong Names a couple of days ago. Since then I’ve thought of more. It’s funny and even though some of them are hokey we still use them. It’s tradition, I guess. And we all know how important traditions are, people play violins from rooftops to show us how important they are.
Now if I just played the violin. the view up there must be spectacular. Maybe I’ll take lessons.
i know this is an old post and you probably will not see my comment, but i just stumbled upon your blog and could not resist.
i laughed so hard reading your post (and the comments) i almost wet my undies b/c the language sounds exactly like my in-laws.
is it possible what i’ve always assumed was kinsley ks language is really a widely accepted patois?
Oh, oh…me next!!
My mom is a hoot. We call her lingo “Mary-isms” (cuz, you see, her name is Mary!). Here goes:
fruneral = funeral
reef = wreath
pitcher = picture (also means pitcher, too)
ministrayshun = menstruation
eyetalian = Italian
kren = crayon
gooms = gums (like in your mouth)
Oh there are soooo many more but I can’t think of them at the moment but I totally laugh right along with you! I don’t know how I turned out normal (well mostly normal).
I realize this post is over a year old but I just found your site last night, and have been going through your archives, and wanted to chime in.
Just before my dad died a few years ago he started messing with computers and was always buying some computer related item or another. One day we were talking on the phone and had the following conversation.
Dad: I went to Paper Clip today.
Me: Paper Clip?
Dad: Yeah, you know. I bought some printer paper.
Me: You mean Staples?
Dad: Huh?
Sigh.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for making me laugh! I sooooo needed it!
My mother still cannot say the word oxygen. We have tried saying it slowly and have her repeat it but, to no avail. To her it will always be … OX a gun. Why??? Maybe in another life she really had something against certain types of cattle. We all just smile and giggle a bit when she says it now.
My family kept a lot of words that my older brother made up as a toddler. Here’s some of them.
guk-guk is milk
fa-fa is crackers or just fa for cracker
bung is gum
ky-ky is candy
Now my husband knows them all but when he was first asked if he wanted guk-guk with dinner he was speechless.
This post makes me think of my mom (she passed away 20 years ago), but she had a wonderful personality that was highlighted by the way she spoke, and she loved to talk! She was from Arkansas, and used phrases like ‘press some clothes’ because no one knew what she was talking about when she said ‘Arn’. Fire was Far. Tire was Tar. When I was little we were stationed in Hawaii, and I remember my dad jokingly telling my mom before we would go in someplace, “Don’t say anything when we get in here”…everytime they would meet knew people, especially those homesick GI’s, my mom would say something and that would be it, they’d keep her talking for hours and my dad would just have to hang out and wait. Thanks for taking me down memory lane!
my mother in law is from Riley KS (near Baldwin Creek=Ballin Crick)
Here are some translations:
poosh=push
goat the bathroom=go to the bathroom
choirpractor-widely used as I have come to learn
veternary (as in take it to the veternary and see if it is sick)
treadmeal=treadmill
colonostomy=colonoscopy
anabotics=antibiotics
shakini=zucchini
shakuzi=jacuzz
and a daily request: “can you internet that to her? here is her internet name.”
almost forgot the switching of CVS (drugstore) to QVC in conversations- she frequents them both often so I can see how she gets them confused
My late mother-in-law’s language was complicated by hr speaking only Italian the first six years of her life and by near-deafness in her later years. She picked words that sounded (in Itlaian or English or some language only she knew) appropriate to her. Two of my favorites:
Preparing squid for calamari one night, she told my wife, “Oh don’t worry, I cut their testicles off.” And my favorite, breathlessly reported after a mobile home park manager collapsed and died at a dance: “And they had to call the paraplegics.”
I used to say warsh and arn. My friend noticed it when I was about 12. We argued about it. She was wrong. My MOTHER says warsh. I nearly died when I heard her say it. I now enunciate everything. Unless I have had more than two glasses of wine or have been visiting family. (My family is from Tennessee and Tallahassee, Florida when it was still considered the south!)
Love it…..my mom says “Your Well-clome.”
Drives me insane. She also adds that ‘r’ in washington and wash and other such words……
Glad to know she isn’t alone….and she taught English to tons of children out there.
That now “warsh” their clothes.
Hilarious! My MIL refers to purebred dogs as “thoroughbred” dogs