Fun Monday: Family Words
March 17th, 2008 by sallad
In this week’s Fun Monday, Nikki asked what crazy words were invented in your families when you were kids and stuck…
My husband’s family is chock-full of words like this, and he tries his hardest to infuse them into our family, but I’ll leave those for him to describe. I’m having a hard time thinking of words from my family because I’m used to them and they don’t stand out anymore.
I can only think of two phrases from my childhood that I’m still carrying on:
- Hairy Fairy - This term means “bed head,” like when you get out of bed and your hair is a mess. I don’t remember when it started, but I think I remember my aunt calling me that. We say it now with hands held up like claws, and in a scary voice, rather than like a cute little elf. I don’t remember if that’s how it always was said though.
- Skin a Rabbit - Again, I don’t remember the history to this one, but it means Lift your arms straight up. When I was a little, my parents said it when they were helping me get undressed. They’d have me lift my arms straight up so they could pull my shirt straight up and off. It’s used mostly now when I find Thomas in the garage with greasy hands and wearing a nice clean shirt. If I Skin a Rabbit, then we can remove the shirt without greasy hand prints and he can continue on his project.
I know I say other phrases I picked up from my family, but of course, I can’t think of them right now. What crazy words stuck from your childhood?
Posted in Fun Monday
I find skin a rabbit cute…might steal that one! Happy FM!
Hairy fairy sounds logical, lol !
Love ‘em both, especially Hairy fairy…
Dude, the fairy hairy must visit it me every night because by morning I look like I stuck my finger in an electric socket!
Thanks for playing!
My maternal grandfather (Opa) had just tons of wacky expressions. Some came from the Navy, some from his life working for Ma Bell as a telephone lineman, and some because he was a seriously bizarre man. I don’t remember too many of the phrases now, but he always used “git”- he got it from his British heritage, I guess. He used it a LOT. He also liked to refer to cooters, as in the kinds of bugs. He had other less appropriate names for bugs, too.
My dad is also big on created words and funny phrases. We grew up with the Chanuka Beagle (don’t tell me Snoopy isn’t Jewish with that nose)- he alway said if we were good girls the Chanuka Beagle would come and bring us presents. He never came, though, so what’s that say about my sister and me? We were always “cruisin for a bruisin” or “fixing for a lickin” and there was lots of random Yiddish in there, too. Any ugly dress (or old dress) was a shmata, which is the Yiddish for a rag. Everyone was a goy (growing up in NH, most everybody is). I also had some uniquely NH and New England family vocab- it was “setting on snow” most of the time, everyone in NH has a “mud room” between the house and garage in spring, it’s a “breezeway” the rest of the year. And to me, spring was entirely determined by the flowers. Daffodil meant the beginning of the end of snow, and peonies harked real spring. I always thought of late spring as “peony-time” as opposed to the rest of spring, which is just plain old “mud-time”.
That’s all I can recall right now!
When I read ‘hairy fairy’ I wondered what was coming next!!
it was called skin the onion around our parts.
Skin-A-Rabbit sounds like something that would be good to use in a preschool!!
Oh, we used “skin a rabbit” also–it meant hold your arms up so someone could peel your shirt off over your head.
I’m the queen hairy fairy. It’s not pretty in the morning around here…
Both of those make sense. :) My son used say “Oos and ox” for shoes and socks and Bemember for remember.
Well, you know… that IS how you skin a rabbit. It’s a very apt description. Of course, you don’t need to tell the kids this!
those are great!!!
“Hairy Fairy” is from the song “Little Bunny Foofoo” that your Aunt Mary always sang. In the song, Bunny Foofoo would scoop up the field mice and bop them on the head. The “big hairy fairy” would give a warning with so many chances or Bunny Foofoo would be turned into a goon. I don’t remember the bed head connotation with Hairy Fairy.
Other family words were “simp” and “deed”. If you were acting like a “simp” (simpleton) or being a “deed” (getting into things you shouldn’t) you were headed for trouble.