A RealFamilies RealFun Blog

Sep 4 2008

Lost in translation

Category: Family Fun

My family has its share of funny nicknames, but many of our made up words involve or are derived from food. My sister used to refer to Asbury Park (in New Jersey, near my childhood home) as Strawberry Park. But she pronounced strawberry as stowberry as in "Can we go to Stowberry Park, mommy?"

Nathan calls tomatoes, maymose. So V8s are now called Maymose Juice. He used to say sosa instead of soda. (Sosa is actually the Spanish word for soda.) So drinking a pop was "having a Sammy Sosa."
Then there's avocado or should I say, avamacodo?

Then there are the words and phrases that make life easier for Paul and me. For example, "Lucie, please stop screwing around with the DVD player. Opening and closing it constantly isn't a good thing. Putting in two DVDs at once is a great way to break it. Stop pushing all the buttons on the remote." These long, panicked sentences turn into the short but sweet, "Lucie stop messing!" It's amazing how the word messing means so many things:

• Lucie relocating her upstairs sock drawer in the downstairs toy box.
• Nathan pulling the CD drawer out of his computer.
• Lucie rearranging the contents of my wallet and diaper bag all over the foyer of a friend's home.
• Nathan pushing all the buttons at a museum exhibit just because it's fun to push all the buttons.

What fun phrases and made up words does your family use?