Expressions or phrases unique to your family

[Ginmonkeyagain]

Do you have any words or phrases unique to your family or relationship.

Tell me about them here, bonus points for a good origin story.

We say that !

@MargaretThursday love the 'union lights' made me lol.

"Tears in my tummy" used by 3 yr old DD as we were getting ready for her first afternoon at nursery. We use it now when we are nervous about something.

"Uppy dippy down" Same DD pronounced upside down like this and it's stuck

It's very particular to when we are decorating but 'can you pass me the McCauley caulking' 'I've McCauley caulked that area'.🤷‍♀️

Once my partner and I were in an antique shop and my partner was idly touching an item of clothing that was hanging up. The man who owned the shop came over and said in the poshest voice ever "Would you like the nightshirt sir?"

We say it all the time, our 5 year old daughter now says it.

Either I went to school with your DD, or that one is quite widespread.

”Eurgh who boffed?” used to get shouted across the classroom regularly.

Balentine's (valentines) Day and bagetti (spaghetti) Stuck because my eldest called them that as a toddler.

What the bum cheek is going on? Stuck because my middle one used to say this hoping to shock us with his bad language.

My Dad used that too 😄

My youngest introduced us to tickle splinters - pins and needles, we still use that often.

And if we're napping on the sofa, we're having a long blink. First time I said that to my youngest, her brother came home before I'd fully nodded off and I heard her say you'll have to be quiet, mums having a blink 😆

We say doodles!

We have huggles too - I thought it was 'my' word until I heard another mum use it!

"She doesn't look like she's ever had to look for the top of an egg"

Used to mean someone fancy or rich looking.
(It comes from scooping out & eating the top cut off bit of a boiled egg to get every last morsel "

Also
"That one's not as green as he's cabbage looking "

And finally my personal favourite that my best pal coined about my ex husband before I married him..

That one could crawl under a snake with a top hat on

I don't remember it, but my parents told me they used to refer to my cot as "baby jail". Later, after the Crystal Maze became popular, and contestants could be locked in, bedtime was sometimes referred to as "it's time you were locked in your bedroom". (This never actually happened. 😀)

My Irish mother used to say that too!

All single squirrels are called Steve and everytime we see one we say hi Steve. Including me on my own, no kids with me...

I probably look like a very odd person as I walk past a squirrel and say hi Steve!

My mum used to say of people wandering around aimlessly or agitated that they were walking about 'like a fool in a fit'. I often think of that now (when looking for something in a shop, etc) but couldn't ever say it out loud now.

We still call flamingoes “flimbos” and chihuahuas “chickywowows” as my toddler sweetly struggled to say them and it stuck. Also when my eldest son was 3 he was lost his patience with another boy and called him “stoopidy rubbish” . It was the worst insult he could come up with and we all use it to this day.
When mulling things over my dad used to say “I’ll give it a coat of thinking about” . I love that still.

When my then 5 yr old grandson returned to school after the first prolonged Covid lockdown he said he had to wash his hands lots of times during the day and the teacher had a big bottle of hanitizer. Since then we all refer to hand sanitizer as hanitizer 😄

Since DD once got confused when she was small we have always eaten coat potatoes rather than jacket potatoes.

Same spelling but when DS said it wrong when reading aloud we always refer to windy weather pronounced as in Wind The Bobbin Up.

Again from a cute small child, we have pudding sauce instead of cream. We even have a pudding sauce jug.

“Have too many hands” when our hands are full. Ds2 used to say it as a toddler if he was carrying something in each hand and we would say can you get your jacket or something.

“raspberry bastard” is a more recent one for someone being jammy as in lucky. I bought a stuffed cookie at Rude cookies a shop in Glasgow called a jammy bastard and dd (20 at the time!!) called it a raspberry bastard when we got home I did not stop laughing for a long time and apparently she had never heard of someone being jammy. So now I find every opportunity to use it.

We have loads and tbh most of them come from
dd’s words of wisdom. She is unintentionally hilarious sometimes another favourite is from dd about 9 at the time “you know what they say the bigger the book the more the pages”

A couple from my dear old dad now deceased. When putting food in the oven, we must "Be smear a backing pan." Taken from the badly translated instructions on one of the first ready meals we bought back in the 70s.

"Dry provisions cupboard" he had delusions of grandeur and named a random kitchen wall unit as such.

Finally a TV remote will always be a "plonker" in my family as in "pass the plonker".

I am not a sandwich! - to be used when trying to protest your innocence. This was proclaimed by then toddler when being told he was eating like a savage.

I'm being painted - used when applying anything medical to yourself. When eldest had chicken pox the spots were really bad and we tried everything to help/stop the itching. Chamomile lotion was used amongst other things and before he got dressed in the morning he would be "painted", we said it in a jokey way but youngest assumed that what people called it. So he would regularly ask if his brother was going to be painted.

I absolutely love this thread…reminds me of relatives and times gone past 🥲
my dear old gran was a great one for saying words slightly wrong, one I still use is her word for taramasalata…she would have various versions but the one I still say is ‘taramatasalata’.. 😂

Yeah, also Irish and know the ‘wigs on the green’ expression too.

My mum says someone "would laugh to see a pudding roll" meaning they have a silly sense of humour. I think it might be old-fashioned and regional but I've never been sure, or really understood it!

'Honk Honk Philharmonic' - any boast about something that really isn't worth boasting about. From a mishearing of 'A chap I was at school with ended up playing in the Hong Kong Philharmonic' - leaving a puzzled family thinking 'Honk Honk Philharmonic' doesn't exactly sound aspirational.