The coining of the word "familect" to describe pronunciations, odd words, and linguistic quirks that exist within families and other small, intimate groups is such a delight, and explains a lot of the peculiar ways I say things.

#dialects #familect #newwords #language

@derwinmcgeary We have so many! My favorite #familect is our use of “be” as shorthand for “be [obstinate, grumpy, testy, inflexible, etc].” I have no idea where it comes from.

“I don’t want to!”
(exasperated) “Why are you being?”

“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!”
“Don’t be.”

When I was a kid, if something was messy, you would hear my grandparents or my mother refer to it as looking like "The Wreck of the Hespers."

I would always ask, " What are Hespers?"

I always visualized malevolent sprites or brownies or ghosties.

I still say it to this day.

But one day, I was reading something and I see "The Wreck of the Hesperus"--a ship that went down in a storm in Michigan, a place my people have never been. Also a poem by Longfellow.

#Poetry #Shipwreck #Familect

@derwinmcgeary Tricky! They're such natural parts of vocabulary as to not notice them!

Some #familect ones from @curatedjenny and me:
"Binwards" (in the direction of the bin, although not necessarily all the way into said bin)
"Böking" (The act of wrestling with an unwieldy object like a large box - Swenglish. I can't think of how to write it phonetically in English!)
"I'm small" (Feeling emotionally vulnerable)
"Ketlon" (Putting the kettle on)

I have loads of #idiolect ones too, I expect!