Have you ever made up a word?

[jojo2324]

That you use regularly? I feel like I made up the word snarf - did I? I've never heard anybody else use it. (So is it even a word, since it's not in the general lexicon?) To me, snarf is that sniffle, cough, snort issue that people or cats have when their noses are running. It's pretty gross, sorry.

I really have no idea what it is or how to classify it. I think it's a general state of being, not an action.

[slknight]

We use the word snarf. But not in that context. We use it as a verb meaning to eat so fast you're practically inhaling your food. Like "I was so hungry, I snarfed down that pizza."

I'm sure I've made up words, but right now I can't think of any!

[Vajrastorm]

>We use the word snarf. But not in that context. We use it as
>a verb meaning to eat so fast you're practically inhaling your
>food. Like "I was so hungry, I snarfed down that pizza."


Thats what we use snarf for too!

Let's see, we have:

whambulance. Usage - to be in a whambulance, as in upset. From "waaaah" plus ambulance. (Crying kind of "waaah")
"Quick, somebody call whine-one-one! We need a whambulance!"

grumpled - irritable. A word often used about Aine. "Uh-oh, baby is getting grumpled."

Edited to fix my italics :)

[jasabo]

We snarf pizza in our house too :) It's funny - I've never thought of it as not a word, we've been using it for so long. What does that say about my knowledge of grammar ??????

We have "crabies" very often around bedtime - cranky babies. And jater - water with a splash of juice for the babies. Sadly, I'm not very original with it comes to making up words. I just combine a few together.

Lisa - mom to 9 month old twin boys

[flagger]

My Dad used to call one of my sisters Peeleerfee.

I told one of my nieces that my dad and her sister had gone to the Brackafratz store while she was sleeping and she was soooooo mad that she didn't get to go.

Snorgaling is something that Ms. Flagger and I have been known to do.

And the round bulb for removing snot is the booger snurfer.

[lizajane]

skringle. (sckringle?) i don't actually know how to spell my word! but if something is skringled it is all messed up. sheets get skringled rather often. babies' outfits get skringled a LOT.

[lisams]

woobies - something the cats get when they go storming through the house chasing each other with their tails all fluffy and their eyes full of trouble!!!

[khakismom]

That's how we use "snarf" too. :)

[trumansmom]

We call those the cat tears (tear as in racing through something as opposed to crying.)

Mine is "cannatch". A combination of connected and/or attached. It's most useful context is when a piece of jewelry gets cannatched to an article of clothing by accident.

Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/29/01 and EDD 4/23/04!

[jojo2324]

LOL, these are funny! Too bad, I thought I invented snarf. :) For the context everybody uses it, I say scarf or woof. "Whoa, he's really woofin' down that sub!"

Another one is snooger: snot booger. Those endlessly long, tacky, slimy things you extract from children's noses. Blech.

[deenass]

My husband coined the word "skidling." It's used to refer to my nieces and nephew (plural) since you have parents, and siblings, he decided a word was needed for our "siblings kids."

We use the word quite regularly!

[RwnMayfair]

We always used "snarf" in the same way as a few other people mentioned - you snarf down something you're eating. (You know, you eat it quickly.) I also have vague memories of the old "Thundercats" cartoon and their cat-like pet thing being named Snarf or else he said snarf a lot. These are really vague memories though, so I'm not promising that made any sense. ;)

Anyway, one of the words that we use a lot that I don't know if it's real or not is "snorfel." Cats (and dogs) snorfel when they do those intense sniffing sessions. One of the cats is snorfeling the baby swing, for instance. (And then she licks it. I have yet to figure out why she likes the fabric on the swing so well that she licks it so often.)

Another one is "snitty" which is a cross between between "kitty" and "snit" and we tend to use it in reference to the same cat I mentioned above. ;) Usually when she seems to be a snit of some sort or another about something, she then becomes a snitty instead of just a cat or kitty. Of course, our cats just have lots of nicknames anyway. ;)

-Melissa

Taran Reed - Nov, 20, 2003

[Marisa6826]

Our definition of snarf is to shove food down very quickly -

As in, "I was starving and snarfed down three pieces of pizza".


A word that we think we made up is "gianormous". Combo of giant and enormous.

As in, "That is one gianormous diamond" ;)

-m

[jec2]

OMG YES!!! DH & I do this all the time. In fact, once on a long long walk we made up new names for body parts. Most escape me now, but I do remember "nubs" for toes. We still use it too.

Also, we have "derfer" aka a dorky nerd but in a good way. For example, if you realize that you've been walking around with chocolate on your nose, you are a derfer. If you count the steps from the front door to the mailbox only, then you are a derfer. If you try to tell a dumb joke but fail at the punchline, you are a derfer.

[jec2]

Oh, we have "waju" for water w/ a splash of juice :)

[papal]

We say SKARF for food not snarf. :)

[NEVE and TRISTAN]

Oh my goodness...more times than I care to admit...

BUT my hubby is KING of this!!!
Neve
http://home.nc.rr.com/ourbabytristan
AKA "mama2be"-forgot password
and Baby Boy Tristan born @UNC
Feb 25, 2003
Brother to 3 pups "gees" and 2 kitties

[kwc]

This is so funny... we use "snarf" all the time... but as in nitpicking/ whining/ complaining ("Oh, poor you! Your life is so hard... snarf, snarf, snarf!") and it never occurred to me that it was a word that others did not use in the same way...
I think it is from DH or his family...

Karen

[urquie]

instead of snarfing up food we say hoarfing. if food is really good it's grubbin'... does anyone say this, i don't think we made it up, but i rarely hear it??

my dad made up kidults to refer to his adults kids.

and a word we use ALL the time to refer to anything that is gross is chud/chuddy/chudbucket. sad to say this word came about when my dh learned the name of a family friend - Chud. he thought i had to be kidding because it just sounded like something really gross. somehow, after all the laughter, it has stuck for years. fortunately dh has never had to meet him. sorry chud!

[jamsmu]

We always said "snarf" was what you did when you were eating ice cream and laughing so hard, ice cream comes out your nose! As in, OMG, you just snarfed! (I know, pretty gross!)

Has anyone read Frindle by Andrew Clements? Its a kids book that I use with my 4th graders in their book club. Its a wonderful book, for adults, too, about the topic of inventing words. It'll take about an hour or two to read... very worth it!

[divabell]

This is a hilarious thread!

Todd says snarf all the time. But not in any of the ways others mentioned. Such as: "I got snarfed into an hour-long meeting." I have no idea where this comes from!

He has lots of Todd-isms. I don't know how many I can think of:

-If something is coming apart or otherwise messed up, it's discombuberated (sp?)
-Anything that sucks something up is a snorfer-thingy (e.g., snot-snorfer-thingy for the suction bulb that Flagger mentioned)

I know there are more but I can't think of them now. In my family it was more calling things by weird names--Target = Tarzhay (like it's French--I've heard other people say this, too) or my dad's favorite, spoonerisms (like a strapless evening gown is a gownless evening strap). It's funny to us but I think other people find us kind of strange. :)

[mom2kandj]

SMARMY - adj, meaning slimey, sticky, and fake. Best used when describing other people's personalities, ie., used car salemen, cell phone hawkers, telemarketers. No offense to anyone one in the above professions! :p

ETA

SNARKY - adj, meaning obnoxious, back biting, rude. *snarky comments made by others are usually just for pushing buttons*

Rose
mom 2 Katie 12/02/00
& Jack 04/16/02

[alkagift]

Flagger, we use "schnozzer" for the nasal aspirator...

Allison
Mom to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03

[josephmama]

I was just thinking that- we saw skarf, too!

[josephmama]

When I was a baby I called a spoon a "pookie". No idea why. But now almost 30 years later my whole family does this- and so do all the waitresses at my dad's restaurant. At first it was embarrassing, now it's funny.

[drsweetie]

I have a similar word -- "skrunkle" that I use in contexts such as:

"Laura hates going to the doctor, but she likes to sit on the examining table and skrunkle up the paper."

I make up words all the time, often by adding the suffixes "-ular" or "-acious". For example, "breastular" and "groinular" refer to specific parts or regions of the body (guess which ones), and "freakacious" is synonymous with "freaky".

ETA that I remembered another one, as used in the following sentence: "Gary put some of that spray lacquer on the wicker chair, so it's pretty fumeacious out in the carport."

[jubilee]

For something really big- it's gi-huge-ic.

[mommd]

DH calls DD Fazizzle (not even sure how it would be spelled!), and she is "fazizzling" when she starts to wake up and wiggles her arms and legs a lot. I think he got it from that silly AOL commercial with Snoop Dog when he says "wait one manizzle" or something like that. :)

[starrynight]

Me too on the skarf (scarf?) thing. :)

I can't think of any words that I use, dh goofs up words on purpose because he knows it bugs me to hear the kids repeating improper words. Like he says pork-a-chop instead or pork chop and he knows I cringe when Alex repeats it. He likes to bug the ever-loving life out of me.

[McQ]

Nope, you can't claim gianormous Marisa :) I use that one too.

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03
and number 2 EDD 9.14.04

[McQ]

We use scarf for quickly eating something too.

And Joanne ~ my husband likes to use the word snart. As if you sneeze and fart at the same time. And no, that doesn't happen very often, it's more if you sneeze he'll say good thing you didn't snart :)

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03
and number 2 EDD 9.14.04

[lag555]

We make up words all the time. For example:

tchetchy: when you are feeling cranky, uncomfortable, your clothes don't fit you properly, and you're not really sure what's bothering you. "I am feeling tchetchy today."

bormday: a day (usually sometime between Wednesday and Thursday) that you can just use to catch up on stuff that have been piling up.
"I think I need a Bormday this week."

angrified/angrifying: when someone does something to make you angry. Like when you are waiting on the train platform at 7 am in the middle of the winter and the train isn't coming and you are freezing and then, 27 minutes after the train was supposed to come and the next train is coming in three minutes, they announce that the train has been cancelled. Like, duh! I think we figured that out by now. Why didn't you announce it twenty minutes ago and I would have waited inside!!!! That's angrifying.


Aggie

[kristine_elen]

Snarf is an actual word. www.dictionary.com.

[kitmama]

We have something sort of like grumpled- when ds is cranky and complaining, my husband says he's "fusslin". He even sings to him:
Lord, I was born a fusslin man/ Crying and a-poopin and doin the best I can/ So when it's time for sleeping, I hope you understand/ That I was born a fusslin man
(My apologies to the Allman Brothers)

[Imperia]

I do this quite often. I think it is probably something I picked up from my father. When I was a child, he would always make up funny stories with special words and names for all the characters. The chracters would never have normal names like "John" and " Lisa". I remember one set of chracters called "Diggy and Zubby".

Just yesterday, I found myself calling DD "gooshga"; I have no idea why or exactly what it means, heh.

Also, closely related to this phenomenon, is the use of an ordinary word in a new manner, until it takes on a new meaning.

When I was about twenty, I hung around with a bunch of guys. For some reason, no one can recall, we all started using the word "Shady". Shady, obviously can mean "in the shade" or "sort of an iffy situation". We meant more the latter term, but it grew and began to take on it's own nuances. I can still look at my husband (who was one of those guys I hung around with) and say, "Wow, that was so shady!" and he will know exactly what I mean. I never even realized how much we used this word until a friend of mine pointed it out to me recently.

Imperia