Several weeks ago, Charlotte and I were chatting over email and I happened to slip in the word “tomfoolery.” I can’t even remember in what context it was discussed but it ended up making us laugh a lot. I flipping love this word. It makes even the most suspicious of acts sound like a harmless bit of mischief. In my opinion words such as “tomfoolery” and my new favourite, “shenanigans” are neglected words in the English language and we should be popping them in to sentences left, right and centre.
There are also so many phrases that have gone out of fashion. Being a Northerner I was frequently told by my Grandpa that it was “a bit black o’er Bill’s Mother’s.” For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, it means that you should grab your umbrella because it’s about to bucket it down. As a child I was often puzzled about who Bill was. He definitely wasn’t part of our family and no one else seems to know who he is either. Whenever I’ve said the saying further down south, I get a very blank expression.
At family celebrations we frequently raise a toast with the words, “May these be the worst of our days.” This was apparently a favourite saying of my Great Grandmother and I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to chink glasses with so many other people that the phrase has entered the vocabulary of many a family friend too.
Away from the words and phrases that we want to bring back out of the linguistics closet, there are the new abbreviated words that have emerged over the last few years. It was a while before I realised that my colleagues weren’t swearing at me when they abbreviated “working from home” to “WFH” and a good ten seconds before I worked out someone mentioning “OOO” in an email subject line wasn’t trying to share something exciting with me, just they were “out of the office.”
Clearly I’m not one for text speak. Gone are the days when we had a character limit on our Nokia mobiles so you’re unlikely to find me OMGing or LOLling on my phone. In fact thanks to iMessage I frequently write a whole novel in one text message. I do confess though that I have uttered “ohemgee” out loud several times in the past and I believe the word “amazeballs” was invented by my friend Melissa.
As bit of light-hearted Friday fun I thought we should all mention a few of our favourite phrases, quotes, and words that we’d like to bring out of the linguistic closet. Alternatively are their any words you believe you’ve invented amongst your circle of family and friends?
Feel free to comment on any you find particularly irritating too. I heard someone utter “Can I phone a friend?” the other day. People are STILL saying this phrase. Is anyone else with me that it should be banned or at least carry a heavy fine?
Oh I LOVE this post! My favourite old time phrase that I use regularly is ‘brass monkeys’ indicating that is cold outside (what with being from ‘up north’ I obvs use this one frequently) My Grandpa, just turned 90, used ‘holy catfish’ to express surprise. I’m still working on being able to pull that one off. My dad has a favourite phrase that was regularly used to try and motivate us in our moody teenage years – the phrase always started ‘If the SAS were recruiting…’ and then it would follow with whatever he was trying to get us to stop doing, eg ‘If the SAS were recruiting would they be looking here in your bedroom?’ Having no interest in being in the SAS it never really worked and drove me insane but it brings a smile to my face whenever I hear him say it now. Ah the oldies are the goodies. 🙂
I’m going to try and get ‘holy catfish’ in somewhere this weekend 🙂
Me too Claire. You know in Clueless when Cher goes on about putting ‘sporadic’ in a sentence? We should do that with ‘holy catfish.’ I’m still working on my sentence though…. 🙂
Ha! I love shenanigans!!
We have a million little sayings in my family but my two favourites are…
When doing a toast, one person will say ‘The Queen’ and everyone else has to say ‘and all who sail in her’
and when someone tells a really boring story, someone else will say ‘Good story Walter’. I have no idea who Walter is, there’s no one in my family called Walter, it just kind of stuck
“May these be the worst of our days.” – that’s lovely! Your Great Grandmother sounds like an awesome lady, Lauren. 🙂
My friends and I have developed some pretty odd slang over the years – to the point where I now feel quite self-conscious when someone not from our friendship group is present – because then I feel weird talking ‘normally’ to my uni friends but also feel weird talking in our usual way with people present who don’t get it. I have another friend who abbreviates EVERYTHING. Tom is tomorrow, unfort is unfortunately, hap birth is happy birthday.
I have some cousins in New Zealand who are all in their late teens/early 20s and I do not have a CLUE what they’re saying to each other on Facebook. All the words are spelt wrong, vowels are always doubled and there are randomly capitalised letters thrown in there for extra-confusion. My cousin’s name is Pauline but everyone calls her Liinqy. This is a level of fashionable slang that I really, really hope dies out soon because I can’t understand any of it! Maybe that’s a sign of age.
Sometimes I wonder if I want to make friends with family on Facebook. When I saw what some of the younger members of my family got up to at Uni, quite frankly I was horrified. The language! So much ‘effing and jeffing!’
I def think it’s better not to know. It also makes me SO thankful that Facebook wasn’t around during my uni years – oh god the horror!
Ah love a language post. We have a few random family sayings that cause much hilarity to us (and only us)! When waving visitors off, the in-laws enjoy saying “come again when you’ve got less time”. Of course they don’t mean it! My dad says “nesh” as in feeling the cold and lots of people don’t know what that means here. My family has Scottish roots and I’m sure there’s some odd sayings from that!
I love what the youth of today would call eccentric language – jolly good and marvellous!
I like the word splendid.
Also “Rad” (especially when said by a very well spoken person such as Rock My Wedding’s Editor Lolly)
People think I’m bonkers because I say stuff like that. I say shenanigans and call people a “scamp” all the time. Don’t get me started on abbreviations and acronyms my work is FULL of them.
Scamp! That’s brilliant. I like scally-wag too.
Personally I’m rather partial to splendiferous, noggin (as in oh, you noggin or use your noggin) and toodle pip. x
Splendiferous reminds me of Charlie and the Chocolate factory. It sounds like it should be a chocolate bar flavour 😉 x
I’ve got a love of the word ‘regalia.’ Usually used in the context of ‘ will you please remove your regalia as it’s bothering me..’ Find it more interesting than saying ‘clear up your big fat mess please.’ Xxxx
Which one has the best effect though Han? Do you just end up clearing it up either way?! x
I was brought up in Leeds but now live in Scotland. I like sayings like ‘its raining cats and dogs’ and ‘its just round the corner’ which in my family means a place is actually miles away and words like thingmyjig, raj, eejit, obviously Scottish words and Scottish sayings like ‘slower than a week in a jail’. I have been in Scotland so long Iv forgotten quite a lot of Yorkshire lingo.
I was brought up in Leeds but now live in Scotland. I like sayings like ‘its raining cats and dogs’ and ‘its just round the corner’ which in my family means a place is actually miles away and words like thingmyjig, raj, eejit, obviously Scottish words and Scottish sayings like ‘slower than a week in a jail’. I have been in Scotland so long I have forgotten quite a lot of Yorkshire lingo.
I’v never heard of ‘slower than a week in jail’. That’s brilliant!
My dad used to have lots of lovely sayings when I was littler, like “off to see a man about a dog”, calling me a “duck egg” and when it was bedtime singing “up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire”. They make me smile, he also used to quote a lot of top gun lol but never mind. My uncle called me “nip/nipper” which I liked too. I live in Yorkshire but apart from really common sayings like “hey up” or “cocka-spaj” I can’t think of anything. I like the word “douche” and also “berk” too! X
Awww Alex you’ve reminded me how much I miss ‘Hey up!’ Coming from Sheffield I am guilty of saying ‘right’ in every sentence. When I went to you Uni I was ripped for saying ‘right good’.
I’m from Barnsley! You can imagine the accents near me lol, luckily mine isn’t quite typical Barnsley and hopefully people understand me lol!! I love meadowhall in Sheffield it’s my go to shopping place!! X
All of these older/more traditional family sayings are far cuter and more meaningful than the tosh teenagers love to make up – I am a secondary teacher so hear some right rubbish all the time, although I have to say, some of it makes me giggle and there is no better satisfaction than dropping some of their slang into my lessons – the latest at our school is to declare something is ‘pale’ if it’s just a bit rubbish/boring/unfair. This phrase was driving me insane up until a few weeks ago when I dropped it into my feedback in a lesson. Utterly devastating to the poor 15 yr old darlings – there is nothing quite as uncool as your teacher adopting your slang – but I’ve not heard the class say it since! Haha! Get your thinking caps on again kids – just ruined that one fair ya! 🙂
Oh Georgina, this is brilliant!