Hi guys,
My dad, Bing, is weird. We love him very much, but he has warped us. When he shaved he used an eclectic razor. His speach is full of words either used wrong, pronounced wrong (I still have to think which is the correct way to say "au jus" and then use the one that sounds odd to me)or backwords. Mom (MissAnn) gathered all his oddites of speach under the heading of Binglish. In our (the kids) house holds we will call that place inside your house where you park your car the Eg. It is short for Egarag. This is the house I grew up in, and it all seemed normal to me. As a result, now when I need a piece of hardware I will say to my wife "I'm going to Ugly King, want to come along?" She knows that ugly king = homely despot = home depot (big hardware, home improvement company in the US.) Am I the only one with a strange fambly, or are there others out there?

Mine might not have been so extreme, but similar.
Which may explain a few things...

Oh, we definitely had Binglish ("Can you magazine that?"), though others were just family words that came from a number of situations, such as baby talk or even from TV shows ("I Love Lucy" was our favorite!). "Ritzahs," for example were "washcloths" and "sitzahs" were "slippers." From a Lucy, if someone bought some clothing we all thought was ugly, we'd say, "Perhaps if you wore it with ballet slippers and a crushy belt?" Oh...and then when someone had a fight with a friend, they'd sing (as in a Lucy), "Friends of the Friendless..."

Families are fun, aren't they? When my kids were little, Shu was going to order a pizza for us. He said, "Sausage and mushrooms as usual?" Well, our son hates mushrooms and we all hate sausage, so we just looked at him in surprise. Now whenever we have pizza, we all say, "sausage and mushrooms as usual?" [Sorry, Shu, but that one is just precious.]

When I was growing up, we used to say, "In my candied opinion..."

Also, Shu and I talk about "shoe lace-ish type gifts." Translation: Very thoughtful gifts. I don't think there is an actual word for that. The story behind it? When Shu and I were dating, I had some navy tie shoes (Ugh!), and my shoe lace broke. I couldn't find a navy shoe lace anywhere and was about to throw the shoes away. Sweet Shu had looked all over Chicago and found a pair for me.

We have some interesting "familiy-isms", too.

My father always says "Whenever you're ready, Mr. DeMille", if he's ready to leave for an event and is telling the rest of us that he is ready. It's a punch line from an old joke.

My mother one day decided that she was tired of constantly hearing "MOM!" shouted through the house. This was when all three of us kids were under the age of 12 or so, and we were constantly shouting for her. She came storming down the stairs, shouting "I'm changing my name . . .to Cousin Ellie or something!" So, now we sometimes (40 years or so later) still call her Cousin Ellie.

When we are referring to some nasty bit of food that others might find very yummy, but which we find disgusting, we call it "toad ice cream". Don't ask.

I'll think of more and post again . . .

Funny, CW!

My grandfather thought he was too young to be a grandfather, so he refused to be called "Grandpa." We all called him by his name, "Ed." At the time I didn't think much about it, but now it seems so odd.