Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. — William Butler Yeats
Building on the idiosyncratic nickname theme from last month’s blog entry, today’s edition takes the topic a bit further to discuss the common practice of family group-speak. By family group-speak I mean words and expressions that originate exclusively within a given family. Most often they develop organically on their own accord through a shared family experience.
I’d say most families have their own internal group-speak: certain catchphrases and idiom that serve as humorous reference points.
I simply can’t stop using words and expressions uttered by my son during the toddler years. No matter how butchered and mispronounced, they always have a sharp ring of raw authenticity.
My usage applies even outside the walls of my home, to the great surprise and confusion of the uninitiated. My all-time perennial favourite is “importmant.” I’ve got a lot of mileage out of this one.
“It’s very important for your brain to get lots of sleep each night,” I would explain to my two-year-old son, steering him away from a doodle session to get ready for sleep (aka “nigh nighs”).
I would later hear him tell his mother about how “importmant” it is that she get to sleep soon. Or how “importmant” it is to always brush our teeth before bed. In addition to being super-cute, it just plain worked: at the office, at the grocery store…even during job interviews:
Recruiter-type: “Well, Mr. Hughes, it says here on your CV that you’ve accomplished several key initiatives during your tenure. How would you describe some of these accomplishments?”
Brett: “I’d say I’ve spear-headed some significant and importmant deliverables, yes, starting with…”
Recruiter-type: “Excuse me, did I hear you correctly? I’m pretty sure you just said ‘importmant’ deliverables.”
Brett: “Sorry, I hate empty jargon, too. How about: I was the main contact person on quite a few importmant projects?”
Recruiter-type: “Just leave now.”
(To be sure: when I say the usage “worked,” I mean it worked exclusively for me.)
The vernacular follies continue with yet another toddler classic, which emerged organically from my son’s mouth as he was slapping his pudgy toddler fingers off the computer keyboard. When asked if he was writing a story, he responded, “Nahhhh…I nah rite somefing.”
In addition to approximating a clever patois contraction of Standard English, this catchphrase hit pretty close to home, given what I pretend to do each day for a living. For a tortured, hapless and perpetually procrastinating writer like me, this was manna from editorial heaven. You see, I get myself into quite a state when I have a hard deadline. Basically, I ignore it until it’s too late, then I sob and get it done somehow. I usually end up in the closet covered head to toe in sticky notes, murmuring obscenities under my breath.
So it was like striking gold to have a stock answer for all of my wife’s prying questions about the status of my latest piece of drivel:
“What am I working on? I NAH RITE SOMEFING, OK???!!” We even developed a little ditty for this one, complete with a range of harmonies and a bass line:
“I’m nah riting somefing [UH!]. I’m nah riting somefing [UH!]” (think of a conga line vibe, only with strange diction and pronunciation).
Now that the boy is fast-becoming a ‘tween, we’re looking forward to a whole new vocabulary of oh-so-cool catchphrases. It’s already started: he beat me the other day at Trivial Pursuit and in the heat of his victorious and triumphant moment, he pointed at me and bellowed: “Ownage!!”
Having someone scream “ownage” at you is what we used to call a “burn” or, more contemporaneously, a “diss.” I can’t help myself from adopting these catchphrases as my own. Maybe it’s recognition of the fact that I’ve become old and uncool, or maybe my continued abuse of these terms keeps me feeling connected to my family’s history.
Either way, it will continue to be crucially importmant to me. It has even given me grist to rite somefing for my latest blog.
Ownage!
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