Please don’t disturb my peaceness with your beautinessNovember 15th, 2007 @ 7:01 am
Quite a few years ago The King and I attended a class at our church. An older native American man started to also attend the class. He was new to the congregation and seemed to be a very nice man. His dark skin was leathered and he wore his long black hair in two braids. He often spoke of Mother Nature and gave beautifully poetic responses to the topics in class.
During one of his thought-provoking dissertations he spoke of his time spent in Alaska and about how being in the wild brought him closer to God. He talked about the beautiness of the world and the Spirit he felt while in the beautiness and how he is now full of beautiness and would like to share the beautiness with the world and all its beautiness.
Dude, the world is full of beautiness.
From then on out we only referred to him as Beautiness.
(Behind his back. Of course.)
Beautiness didn’t stay in our congregation long. He was a nomad of sorts and moved on after a few short months. Fortunately his legacy has lived on and The King and I continue to use the word beautiness in our day to day vernacular. We think it’s funny, but those around us probably think we’re idiots.
When we went out to visit my family a few weeks ago my baby sister was nice enough to pick us up from the airport and drive us out to my folk’s house in the boonies. While making the hour trek she began telling us about how the locals were against the installation of a light rail system. She said nobody wanted it in their neighborhood.
They didn’t want the light rail to interrupt their peaceness.
The rest of the weekend was spent teasing my little sister and upsetting her own personal peaceness.
Making fun of family members for their lack of knowledge = Comedy Gold.
Monday night I bent down to pick up a raisin left on the floor by my Sweet Babboo. As soon as I touched it I realized it was not a raisin but was, in fact, a cat turd. I began freaking out and screaming about how I was touching poop with my bare fingers.
The King asked me how I knew it was cat poop and not a raisin. “I knew it was poop as soon as I felt it’s liquidness!”
“Dude, liquidness isn’t a word, you moron.”
“Yes it is. I’m sure of it.”
The following day I asked my coworkers to verify if liquidness was a word or not. They laughed, of course, and told me it wasn’t a word and that I was a truly a moron.
Until one of them sent me a link proving that liquidness is a word!
Phew. That was a close call. I was afraid that liquidness was going to be the new beautiness. Or worse, the new peaceness.
So tell me, do you use any made up words in your day to day life because you are sure they are real words?
They're just my family · I rock · Random · Churchy Stuff · Back in the day
Operation Pink Herring
said,
November 15, 2007 at 4:25 pm
My brother is very smart but not very good at English. He embraces this and told us a funny story about how he and a coworker berated their fellow coworker (who is Indian, and is self-conscious about his accent) for using the word “pandemic”. They made fun of him and told him to learn the English language because DUH everyone knows it’s called an “epidemic”, not a “pandemic”.
Yeah. In the same conversation it also came out that my brother didn’t know what a “lull” in conversation meant. Comedy gold.
Anna
said,
November 15, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Do words from other languages count?
My dad used to work with a lot of Eastern Europeans and picked up and passed on some of their slang words. Rava, for instance, supposedly means rear end in Slavic. As in, sit your rava down. I’m still not 100% sure that this is actually a word and not just something they made up.
I sometimes use them in general conversation and people around me throw the “What the heck is her problem” look in my direction.
Stephanie
said,
November 15, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I use ginormous because my little brother used it all the time. I think it is a word in the urban dictionary though.
The husband likes to add the ending “ia” to everything and then voila! It is Spanish. Really, I think it is just him being an ass.
Keri
said,
November 15, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Well I like to make up words myself. I frequently use “totes” in coversation instead of saying “Totally”
Also, I like to use the word asshat, its a variation of assclown. crass, but funny (to me!). As in “this asshat that I work with…”
Melain
said,
November 15, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I have a client who uses the word agreeance. “So we’re all in agreeance then?” I just blink at her and quietly give her another moron point.
I, myself, like to add the suffix “ish” to just about anything. I’m hungryish. I’m doing wellish. He’s very niceish. It’s a lovely non-committal style of speech.
Danielle
said,
November 15, 2007 at 5:12 pm
When I was reading your post, I was all, what’s wrong with the word beautiness? Apparently I am a moron too.
Audrey
said,
November 15, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I don’t know if I use a lot of made-up words (at least without knowing it; I knowingly make up words all the time), but I do like to talk about different “flavors” of lotion. You know, like almond, vanilla, citrus, floral. They name most of the scents after food, so that totally makes it okay to call them flavors. Right?
Anna
said,
November 15, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I always say “investigatory” because of Zoolander and people get uncomfortable because they don’t know if I’m a moron or if it’s a real word.
Marriage-101
said,
November 15, 2007 at 6:24 pm
My husband says “funner” instead of “more fun”
Meritt
said,
November 15, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Big Grin on my face because you blogged about raisins this week too! Ok - I called mine rabbit turds, and yours ended up to be a cat turd.
It’s official - Blog about Raisins Week!
heidikins
said,
November 15, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Haha! Classic! I constantly say “am-BLEE-ints” instead of ambulance, and even though I know it’s not a really word, I say “scandalicious” all the time.
)
xox
Kim
said,
November 15, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Hunimbous is a word my daughter made up when she was 2, as in, “Momma, I made a hunimbous mess.”
I use “ish” quite a bit too.
My ex-husband said Valentimes Day and heighth. Ugh.
super des
said,
November 15, 2007 at 7:24 pm
um, yeah
I make up words constantly. But I know they’re not real words. Problem is, they *should* be real. I use them as if they are, and people either think I’m an idiot, or use the words themselves. (maybe they don’t want to appear dumb?)
This is what I *do* man.
Bunny
said,
November 15, 2007 at 7:46 pm
We say, “strategery” after that SNL sketch a few years ago making fun of W. I think it was even back when Will Ferral did his impersonation.
Art Nerd
said,
November 15, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Oh man, I’m an art historian. We make up words like it’s our job. That’s the beauty of the discipline, really. And if it doesn’t work as a run-together word, the hyphen is your friend. In my thesis, I actually said (and I’m getting douchechills just thinking about it!) “The image has an air of about-to-be-caughtness.” oh my heavens!
Liza
said,
November 15, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Noah has lovely manners that are ahead of his ability to articulate actual words. So when he burps (or hiccups) he says, “me-me” instead of “Excuse me.”
We think this is the cutest and most delicious thing ever, and now Jill and I say “me-me” instead of “excuse me” all the time. We hope Noah never grows out of it.
janet
said,
November 15, 2007 at 9:57 pm
My friend and I came up with a word when we were 15 yrs old that we still use today: Critificial. I means critical and superficial at once! as in:
“Maybe I am being overly critificial, but that woman is wearing the ugliest shoes I have ever seen.”
Anth
said,
November 15, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Scrids. My mother always used the word, so now I do too. It means the crap in the bottom of the cereal box/cracker box/chip bag that nobody wants to eat because, well, it’s the scrids. My husband made so much fun of me, but now he says it too because it’s a very useful word!
Whitney
said,
November 15, 2007 at 10:26 pm
I don’t know if this counts but Emily and I make up diseases for everything. Like when people act like they’re too cool for something? We call it TCFS Syndrome… As in Too Cool For School Syndrome. Is that not funny to anyone but us? No? Ok, I’ll stop…
Courtney
said,
November 16, 2007 at 12:35 am
DUDE! I live for made up words!!!
My all time fave is Retardinize - verb. to make retarded.
I also use a TON of yiddish - which really throws people.
Brie
said,
November 16, 2007 at 12:53 am
I love making up words!! I support the use of many of the words listed above. And in my family we also have made up phrases. One of my favorite made up words was created by my cousin who called the refrigerator the “fridgeafrator” everyone now looks at us like we’ve lost our minds when they hear one of us say “in the fridgeafrator”
Beth
said,
November 16, 2007 at 1:45 am
You accidentally picked up cat poop with your bare hands and are worried about your grammar?
HollowSquirrel
said,
November 16, 2007 at 3:09 am
Dude. Cats are evil.
I use ginormous and ridonkulous a lot. I’m sure I use others, but it’s late and my mind has turned liquidness.
Christar
said,
November 16, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I make up words all the time. Because they sound more fun, and different. And sometimes, a make~up word describes something better than a real word.
angela
said,
November 17, 2007 at 1:51 am
I know I do this all the time, but I can’t think of any of my classics right now. I’m still stuck on beautiness.
SJ
said,
November 17, 2007 at 4:11 am
I can’t think of any words I’ve ever made up then used in my every day vocabulary, but I used to speak pig latin all the time. And I made up a language of my own as well…
Lindsey
said,
November 17, 2007 at 4:30 pm
That is a hilarious story! I like to use words like ginormous or beautimous just for fun! Occasionally, I’ll use a word and then say out lousd, wait was that a real word?
Sara
said,
November 17, 2007 at 8:15 pm
*LOL* Peaceness!
I tagged you on my blog here.
Laura
said,
November 19, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I’m sure there are words I use, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.
I totally know about that light rail thing. I heard that it’s going to cost billions and only service about 1% of the population, yikes!
So on top of the lack of peaceness, think of the expensiveness!
Fraulein N
said,
November 19, 2007 at 7:48 pm
I adore fabulous made-up words, like scandalacious and swankified. I bust out swankified whenever possible. And I love learning new made-up words, like scrids. Scrids! That is so useful.
When I was a teenager, my friend Jazz and I would use the word sidal all the time, much to the bemusement of others.
“Oh, that guy over there is so cute!”
“Him? Did you get a frontal view?”
“No just a sidal, but I could tell.”
metalia
said,
November 21, 2007 at 2:57 am
I say “ascared” all the time, and “funnest.” I stand by those words.