These Are The Funny Names Kids Have For Things That Their Families Now Use, Too
When my son was a toddler, my wife and I tried to encourage good oral hygiene by singing Raffi’s “You Brush Your Teeth” every night. The refrain, “ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch,” usually accompanied by moving a finger back and forth in front of your mouth, mimics a thorough job with a toothbrush. I’m not sure how effectively my son scoured his gum line, but he had a fun time watching us sing to him. He quickly began referring to toothbrushing as “chi chi,” and we immediately followed suit. Everyone in our home uses the term. My son is now a freshman in high school, and I’ll still remind him that it’s “time to do chi chi and go to bed.”
These kinds of words or phrases, which are often incomprehensible to people outside of the family, are part of what linguists call a “familect” or “familylect”: the particular dialect of your family unit. Terms like chi chi orphrases or grammatical constructions may come from a young child’s first attempts at saying a word or phrase. In other cases, there’s a story behind the invention of a term, and every use of it extends the life of this family language.
Every family has its own culture, and language always plays a role. From names for grandparents to words for pieces of furniture (our multipurpose desk with drawers lived in the kitchen and was known as the “whatnot”) to mashups of words from different countries of origin, the language we use is part of the meaning we make together that identifies us as belonging to the family unit.
We asked members of our HuffPost Facebook community what words and phrases they have in their own familects, and we were inundated with responses. Here are some of our favorites:
“In our house we sit on the ‘cofa,’ aka, what my son started calling it after combining ‘couch’ and ‘sofa.’ He has three siblings now and they also all call it that!” — Lindsay Gallimore, Calgary, Alberta
“I think my family invented the term ‘k’notch,’ which means to chew loudly with your mouth open. I think this is the first time I’ve ever written that word! I put the apostrophe between the K and the N to make sure the K is not silent. Another one: As a toddler decades ago, my brother called Christmas tree ornaments ‘bombalulus.’ The word stuck with my family and we still say it to this day.” — Nick Kuefler, Minnesota
“As a 3- or 4-year-old, my son insisted on ’flutter-bys — ’cause they do! Others in the family picked it up and it stuck.” — Sherrie Allen, California
“‘Findlight’ for flashlight, ‘bunt’ for butt, ‘sweet peanuts’ are jelly beans and ‘spicy water’ is soda, coined over the years by my now 11-year-old.” — Lynny Riggins, Nebraska
“My brother who has Down syndrome says ‘burr-chee’ when he is cold. Everyone I know uses the term, but my co-worker looked at me funny when I said it.” — Jemima DeGrandpre
“We always used the word ‘phooeeey’ instead of fart — as in, ‘Who did a phooeeey?’ Fart sounded too crude and ‘passed wind’ too euphemistic.” — Amber Mahony
“‘Peeps’ are chips.” — Katherine Nielsen, Minneapolis
“Our 11-year-old daughter called restaurants ‘resternots’ until she was 5. Too cute to correct!” — Rachel Buehner, Kentucky
“My oldest always says ‘fast backwards’ instead of rewind. And to be honest, it makes more sense than rewind nowadays.” — Lisa Eckrich Thomas, Pennsylvania
“We say ‘libble lit’ for ‘little bit’ because both of my twins said it as toddlers. Sometimes we use ‘lobble lit’ as the opposite of that. I’ve accidentally used ‘libble lit’ around other adults when my kids were nowhere nearby. My daughter also coined “realliously” (seriously+really) when she was maybe 7ish, and it feels like a pretty apt, legit word a lot of the time!” — Katie Hodge, Ohio
“Fried eggs are ‘hoop’ or ‘circle eggs’ for my current 4-year-old. Our whole family has started calling them ‘hoop eggs’ because to us it makes sense.” — Anita Dalton
“We call hugs ‘squeezes’ and baths are ‘splish splashes.’” — Liz Chirico, Massachusetts
“Too much toothpaste came out when my daughter was brushing her teeth one night, and she said, ‘The toothpaste just floomed out of the tube.’ So now when too much of anything (ketchup, lotion, etc.) comes out, it ‘flooms’!” — Lisa Walker Miller
“‘Lolo’ for yogurt — my now 12-year-old daughter used this around ages 2-4 and it stuck. We even combine it with other words: ‘lolo raisins,’ ‘lolo parfait,’ ‘strawberry lolo.’” — Windi Hornsby Troyer, Indiana
“Mosquito hawks are called ‘snallygasters.’ I don’t know why, lol. I thought that was their actual name for so long — until I realized no one else ever knew what I was talking about.” — Savanah Greybiehl
“My firstborn loved ketchup on everything when he was young. And he only knew plastic ketchup bottles you had to squeeze that made a distinctive squirt sound. He coined the phrase ‘I pooped the ketchup’ accordingly. We still use it.” — Kimberly Breitmeyer Dana
“My youngest describes everything in the past as ‘yesterday,’ and she doesn’t seem to understand if we say something like ‘last week’ or ‘last year.’ So we all say ‘100 yesterdays’ or a similar phrase when we want to talk about something in the past.” — Reninca Vangheel
“‘Be fearful’ instead of ‘be careful.’ My daughter used to say this when she was little and it just stuck. — Tabatha Star, Ohio
“We say ‘dinner deserved’ because my son couldn’t say ‘dinner is served.’” — Stacy-Ann Bartholomew
“My son is bilingual, and when he was little he invented ‘Graciou’ (Gracias and thank you). My family still uses it. He also invented ‘Tadolo/Tadolamos’ (Te adoro/Te adoramos), which my mother and I use all of the time. He’s now almost 14.” — Naomi Raquel, New York
“When our daughter was 5, she had a bad dream after we saw a performance of ‘The Nutcracker,’ and said she was scared the ‘spookables’ were going to take Christmas away. We’ve used that term ever since to describe anything remotely creepy/scary/funky around any holiday. The same daughter had also called Target ‘The Circle One’ when she was little (because of the logo), so that’s now the name of that store.” — Jennifer Hubbartt, Wisconsin
“When my son was a baby/toddler and was learning to talk and do his baby sign language, he would say ‘All did!’ instead of ‘All done’ when he was finished eating. He’s almost 17 years old now and we still say ‘All did’ whenever someone is done eating.” — Amanda Jones Queensberry, Virginia
“My son called the kitchen tongs ‘snipper-whippers’ when he was 2, and my whole family have called them that for the last eight years.” — Katie Gorman
“We say ‘Bless you’ when anyone burps or farts.” — Drea Zummo, New Mexico
“‘Hanitizer’ will always be our name for ‘hand sanitizer’ — from even a decade before the pandemic ” — Angie Worzala
“My girls called American cheese “Aunt Sally cheese” (can’t recall how this began...)” — Gretchen Vogelsberg
“‘We’ll burn that duck later’ — my husband’s variation on ‘cross that bridge when you come to it,’ I’ve no idea anymore how it originated. ” — Rachel Koehler
“My family still says ‘monkey troll,’ which is what I called a remote control when I was a kid. My then 2-year-old always said ‘wudge you’ instead of ‘love you’ so that’s what we say to each other!”— Jillian Kalbaugh
“We still eat ‘panpakes’ around here. My daughter, now 10, had trouble with ‘pancakes,’ lol.” — Erika C Highes, Tennessee
“We swim in our ‘bathing soup.’” — Kristy Mahoney
“Fly swapper!” — Sabrina Soros Kareha
“Dessert = ‘bizzert’ always and forever.” — Lauren Popp Gruber
“For years my oldest used to point out and be amazed by anyone not wearing a shirt and would excitedly say ’There’s a running man wearing a belly” or, at the beach, ‘Mama, look at the girl wearing a belly,’ aka a bikini.” — Amy Williams, Massachusetts
“We say ‘Daku’ for thank you. My brother said it as a baby in 1937. It’s gone through four generations!” — Kathy Shannon Hall
“My kids call a cold lunch, such as a sandwich, chips, piece of fruit, tomatoes/cucumber and a cookie, a ‘plate.’ It started when my eldest was very young, and I would say, ‘Do you want a plate with a sandwich, chips and fruit for lunch?’ It got shortened to a ‘plate.’” — Ruth Davies, South Wales
“My son used to call popsicles ‘pockabulls.’ Grandpa was ‘Pahgas.’ He also had trouble with the letters ‘tr’ so firetruck became ‘fire f**k.’ We quickly began calling them fire engines.” — Susan Sinnicks
“My stepdaughter said ‘Act-cha-lily instead of actually, and ‘hoss-ta-bull’ instead of hospital, and we all still say those nine years later.” — Jodi Whites, Texas
“‘Cuggle’: a blend of snuggle and cuddle, coined by my youngest when he was 2. It was whispered in the dark at bedtime (‘Cuggle me’) and that’s just what we call it now.” — Kelly Patrick Slone
“‘Patterin’ = pattern. ‘QYB’ = quit your bitchin’, stop complaining, whining, etc. ‘Knockers’ = binoculars. ‘Lubu’ = the way I write ‘I love you’ to my husband. ‘Spstachios’ = pistachios, because I can’t say that word.” — Kelci Berto
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
