My DD made up the best word.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Unoptionally. Basically Hobson's choice. Forced to.

What a great word.

Someone needs to put small children in charge of the dictionary.

So much this. They're tiny linguistic geniuses.

Snackulations. Snacks with which to congratulate an event or person.

Offerings from my DC's vocabulary:

Wig-zag: a cross between a wiggle and a zig-zag

Bum swag: used specifically for the way Scarlett Johansson walks in the Marvel films

A sign of the times. My toddler shortened hand sanitiser to hanitiser. Which I now also use!

@NancyDrawed

We had 'yestertime' for last time and underbeneath

Awwww so cute

@Nisse1

A sign of the times. My toddler shortened hand sanitiser to hanitiser. Which I now also use!

Dd2 calls it that too. So did everyone in the office in 2020

You all need to be speaking German! I'd reckon on 50% of words being constructions of others' meaning to create new words. There's a beauty in that.

E.g.
toy - Spielzeug (play thing literally)
Aeroplane - Flugzeug (fly thing)
Tool - Werkzeug (work thing)
Lighter - Feuerzeug (fire thing)

And so on, every day is school day. Love it!

We have 'jamalade' on toast

We have nervited here, excited and nervous in one, my then 4 year old used this before her first dance exam. We still use it now!

We have flustrated- for when you’re flustered and get frustrated because nothing is going right.

Some of these words are so cute!

My middle DD was looking for her ‘snow earphones’ one day, eventually worked out she meant ear muffs!

@9nine

My middle DD was looking for her ‘snow earphones’ one day, eventually worked out she meant ear muffs!

They're Princess Leia's!

@MrsTerryPratchett

Someone needs to put small children in charge of the dictionary.

So much this. They're tiny linguistic geniuses.

I think it's been established that real languages with their own grammar emerge from pidgin and creole hybrids during the second and subsequent generations .... adults can't invent proper new languages, children can.

I'll presume you know what a Mexican stand-off is

one day DS1 was in the car with me when 2 other drivers and I (from 3 different directions) all arrived at a roundabout at exactly the same time and spent just enough seconds to wait for someone to move first for DS1 to declare "this is an English stand-off"
🤣🤣
I moved first and we still use that phrase

it seems 'unoptional' is already a word

I make stuff up all the time:
sugar juice - syrup
number snail - tape measure
car bread bin - glove compartment
put your lid on - put your hood on
burn water - fizzy water (it burns my tongue)
skinner - potato peeler

once I mispronounced "doppleganger" so the person I said it to laughed and asked "what's a dopplebanger?!" so I said "I dunno, someone who shags their lookalike?"
😁

Umbrella comes from the Italian (?) word for shadow, umbre. So umbrella and parasol are basically the same thing, to shade you from the sun. I think parapluie is a much better word. It's surprising the English don't have a specific word for an anti rain parasol, given the amount of rain we get!

Here you're a Bewilderbeast if you're confused/bewildered.
You're on a roll on the ball if you're on a roll/on the ball.

I love unoptionally.

Salad meatballs is fab! It also reminds me of my DS's name for leeks as a toddler - "food weeds"