Family words/ local words and phrases

...and favorite words

Explaining farb inspired this thread.

We have a few family words.. most do..

One is Hajaja which means leftover bits of this and that for dinner.
Buck is something a baby picks off the floor and tried to eat, like lint. "BUCK! don't eat!"

Have you any of these?

I love the word shenanigans

When our daughter was little, her daddy used to call hamburgers "hamboogies." That got changed to "hamboogities" - and now the whole family just calls them boogities. (Or boogity-boogities)

:) love it!

My mother would say "You need to red up your room" which would mean "You need to clean up your room". I grew up with this and never gave it a second thought. One day in College I told someone I was redding up my desk. They looked at me like I was crazy. I never knew few/no people use the term.

My parents and my brother always call the remote control to the TV a "zapper." Once in awhile I'll call it that, but I prefer to just call it a remote.

My family also make fun of each other about the things we say or have said in the past. For example, when my brother was young, he used to say "nana mind" instead of "never mind" so my parents once in a while will use that phrase. Once my dad pronounced a word wrong by using the "ch" sound instead of the "sh" sound. So, sometimes I'll say to him, "Don't forget to puCH in your SHair" after eating dinner. I once said "heimlich REMOVER" instead of Hemleich MANUEVER by mistake, and my dad makes sure I won't forget that! I think he loves it when the topic of choking comes up.

#1: I also love the word shenanigans. I only use it in front of my family, though!

#4

is your mom from Pittsburgh?

I grew up in Brooklyn in the 50's and 60's -- or in the "old days" as my grandchildren say.

When someone stopped playing with you and started playing with someone else, we would say that person was a "flatleaver." Anyway, most people I know from Brooklyn during that era know the term. However, when I moved away and used the term, no one had a clue what I was talking about.

#1, shenanigans was used all the time in Brooklyn too.

I moved two counties away from where I grew up and no one here calls a shopping cart a buggy. My (then fiance) husband looked at me like I was speaking in tongues the first time I asked him go grab a buggy from the front of the grocery store.

In Boston they call them carriage. We call them buggy here in Pa.

My husband's heritage was 100% German. He used to call troublesome kids "ouchenhinders" (ouch-in-hinder) - in other words, pain-in-butt. It sounds German, but is probably erstaz. (another cool word)

Well for anyone west of the Hudson, on the east coast we do not call soda "pop" and do not call a paper bag a "sack" so on my first trip out west, I had no idea what the clerk was asking me when he said "Do you want a sack for your pop."

My grandmother and father always say "cheery" instead of goodbye. It's either a family or regional Southland, New Zealand thing. I've never heard anyone else use it.

When I first moved to Scotland, someone in Glasgow asked me: "So, do you stay in Dunoon?"

"Er, no," was my response. "For instance, here I am today in Glasgow ..."

Then I found out that "stay" is a synonym for "live" here in the west of Scotland ...!

And my mother was a Tony Hancock fan, so I grew up using the phrase "screaming abdabs" and wondered why no one else knew what I meant ...!

>4

I believe redding and 'to red' is a northern England term. Did your mother's family come from there?

Wiktionary says:

redd: Verb

to redd (third-person singular simple present redds, present participle redding, simple past and past participle redded)

1. (colloquial) To put on order; to make tidy; generally with up.
to red up a house.
2. (colloquial) To free from entanglement.
3. (colloquial) To free from embarrassment.
4. (Scotland and Northern dialect) To fix boundaries.
5. (Scotland and Northern dialect) To comb hair.
6. (Scotland and Northern dialect) To separate combatants.
7. (Scotland and Northern dialect) To settle, usually a quarrel.

Quite a mix of meanings!

http://www.pittsburghese.com/glossary.ep.html?type=verbs

also common "Pittsburghese"
:)

Redd off Clear off. Redd off the table (Submitted by Rich Kier, Lompoc, CA)

Redd up To tidy up. Hey, quit jaggin around and redd up this room! (Submitted by Everyone, every corner of the free world.)

A favorite in my area is 'swolled up' (as bowl) That is when an area of the body has swelling. It really confuses new to the area doctors!

"Put it up" instead of "put it away." It confused the heck out of me when I moved from Chicago to Alabama.

Just the other day I got stares at work (in the NYC area) when I said a store was "kitty-corner" from another store. They solemnly told me it was "catty-corner." Not in Chicago, I told 'em.

Forty-odd years ago, while living in New Jersey, I met a girl from San Antonio with whom I corresponded for a while. She had an older sister who was extraordinarily pretty, and of course had a steady boyfriend.

In one of her letters, my friend mentioned that her sister, and I'm quoting her, "got dropped" by the boyfriend. My reply to that letter included my condolences for the sister, and a polite inquiry as to what led up to the split in the relationship.

The next letter I received from my friend was a less-than-polite questioning of my sanity. "How could (I) even suggest such a thing? (Am I) trying to wish bad luck on the couple's pending marriage? Are all Yankees as cynical as (me)? " That was followed by a rather heated argument ~anyone with even basic understanding of societal etiquette~ KNEW that "he dropped an engagement ring on her" -- i.e., into her hand.

Well, I thanked her for that, and explained that the way we WINNERS OF THE CIVIL WAR had the crude custom of getting dressed up and taking the intended out to a romantic dinner, and at some point (usually between the entree and the dessert), get down on one knee and ask for the privilege and honor of her marrying him. And, if she says "Yes", then he would lovingly place an engagement ring on the appropriate finger. On the other hand, if the genteel Southerners felt it was appropriate to achieve a certain, and unspecified, height and let gravity do the rest of the work, who was I to to cast judgement on local customs?

I don't recall if I heard from her after that, but I didn't lose any sleep over it, either.

*giggle/snort* I've never heard of that one - but then, I'm of the northern persuasion myself. (Ancestors fought in Pennsylvania regiments)

When my oldest grandson was about a year old he used a phrase that has stuck with the family. Yesterday was yesterday so to him last night was: "yesternight". Makes sense, huh?

And then there was the phrase my dad always used when he hit his finger/thumb with the hammer: "Dirty rotten mother *ucking son of a *itch!~!" ***but we don't use that one unless we are discussing dad***

One word I know is only used in my home town is 'Bletch' (bike oil) and some other particularly Northern English words include 'Nesh' (sensitive to the cold) and 'Myther' (pronounced m-eye-ther, which means to pester someone). I also love 'Dock-off' which means very large.

Catzmaw> LOL. Love it!

Growing up, my family called the refrigerator the "fricker-fracker", don't have a clue why.

At home, now, with husband and daughter, we use the word "urp" to designate throwing up. It applies to humans or animals. As in "I feel like urping" or "Merlin urped in the utility room."

'Mardy' is a UK midlands word for someone who is being slightly temperamental.

'Mantod' is someone who is being overly 'mardy' and is a word coined - I believe - by my wife's family.

Isn't it funny how words the baby makes up hang around? I still say "heli-ki-peter" for helicopter - and my baby is 29 years old!

Our son was about two years old when he saw roller skates for the first time and immediately called them shoe cars. This remains a family favorite.

When my daughter was a baby and first learning how to talk, she would called stuffed animals "stuffings" and that's what everyone in my family called them for ages. Now that my 2 kids are getting older, I think they are beginning to realize that they are really called stuffed animals!

In my hometown (southeast Missouri), older folks say "stove up" as in "Gladys was all stove up last Sunday so she didn't come to church. "Stove up" is (I guess) just a generalization of not feeling good--I never got the sense that it was any particular ailment. I've lived in Texas for 25 years and don't believe I've heard that phrase here.

We say 'stoved up' here. It means general soreness usually from an accident, a fall, sleeping 'wrong' or contact sports.

My kids called crayons 'colorins'. It is embarrassing because I still let it slip occasionally!

"Snawesome" is our family word that absically means awesome...it's hilarious when dad slips and says it at work

I like it when I hear the phrase:

"What a COW!"

I mostly hear it in books that are written by authors in England or on British movies....

It's funny.....

When I was little, I used to call my dressing gown my 'Nighting Gown' because I wore it at night . It made perfect sense to the 5 year old me.

here's a word that mostly my mom and her friends gave me as a nickname when I was little:
KULIT. It means naughty.....
They still call me that now.

Moved to Pittsburgh 11 years ago, and still amazed by:
Red Up- "Red up the house, cumpny commin."
Jeet Jet- "Jeet jet? No, joo?"
Dahntahn- "going dahntahn to shop."
Sucker- "Don't give that baby a sucker!"
N'at- "Hand me the wrench, N'at."
Pop- any soft drink.
Gedaht- "Bobby cut his mullet off." "Gedaht!!"

And of course, we are the home of the Pixburgh Stillers, 6 time Super Bowl Champions, N'at. Gedaht!!!

fun stuff:)

Okay...here are a few. The first 3 are actually pig-latin words that I've heard on a regular basis growing up:
"ixnay" (nix=no)
"amscray" (scram=get out of here)
"ightbray" (bright as in "he's not too smart")

Another real favorite:

brolly...a British nickname for umbrella.

A regular around our house:

"I need a haircut."

"Which one?"

A friend of my cousins used to call shampoo - hairpoo. We thought that that was a much better word.

In my family we always speak of inanimate things "wanting" to do different things such as "That bowl wants to go on the third shelf." or "The blue sweater wants to go to the dry cleaners."

Our 2 year-old granddaughter called the first chipmunk that she saw, a "mouse squirrel"

37>

The German word for "bat" is fledermaus--"flying mouse". (I'm not sure if I spelled that correctly.)

We call the remote control the "clicker".

I call my son "Phip" because that's the way he pronounced his name (Philip) when he was a baby. We never call him "Phil" because he has an unfortunate uncle by that name, but he lets his friends call him that.

A small cousin of mine used to say "yester-night" and "lastday"

My parents call the remote control the "zapper". I prefer to just call it the remote, although sometimes I do slip and call it the zapper. It's my parent's fault! :)

When I was a kid in the 50's, we had a remote tv changer. We called it "my baby sister."

According to my dad, when I was a knee-high to a grasshopper I referred to my eyes as my 'eyebulbs.

In my family, anyone who disappears after dinner to go to the bathroom, is referred to as "Aunt Elsie". Aunt Elsie was my grandmother's sister, who as a young girl (circa 1925), routinely went to the outhouse after dinner, and only returned AFTER the dishes were done. Also, the proper response to someone who belches, is not "excuse you," but "Well, Elbert!" This was the response of my great-grandmother to my great-grandfather at dinner every night. I never met any of these folks (except my granny), but their names still pop up at family dinners at appropriate times.

in my family... lol.. sorry for this vulgarness... but when they need to take a bm... its called a rumbble in the juggle

>#43: It's nice to leave a legacy behind.

lol wow, now that i sit here and think about it... wow my family is a circus. lol