Language Investigation #1

While there are only a few words or phrases that my family uses that are out of the ordinary and mean something different to us, the majority of our family "discourse" lies in the region of how things are said. For example, any outsider or guest at one of our large family birthday gatherings would most likely become scared and flee when my family breaks out into a chorus of "Happy Birthday" to honor the birthday boy or girl. Rather then what is said, because everyone tends to get a majority of the words right, it is how the song is sung that wouldn't make sense to those outside my family. Imagine all of my aunts, uncles, cousins and every other member of the family that is present, doing their absolute best to sing in their absolute worst tone of voice and everyone attempting to be louder and more obnoxious than the person next to them. I don't even know that the tune of "Happy Birthday" would be recognizable in the cacophony that results, but it never fails that every birthday is celebrated with our own rendition of the song. This tradition started when my sister had her first ever friend join us at a family celebration for her birthday and my uncle thought it would be funny to try to embarrass her as much as possible and this was the best thing he could think of. From there, the rest as they say, is history.

As far as words go that are often used in my family, one would think that we are fairly mean and insulting to each other, when in fact, they are meant to be terms of endearment. From the time I was little, I have been called stoopy and stinky more times each day then most people probably get in a lifetime. Stoopy, derived from the word stupid, is something that we call each other just out of sheer habit. To my sister and mom I am known as stoopy Eric, and she is stoopy Shell, and then of course there is stoopy mom. My dad never really understood this one and while I don't really know where it cam from either I use it anyways. My dad is the one who uses stinky, calling me and my sis stinky every chance he gets. Even though these words, stupid (stoopy) and stinky, generally have negative connotations, to my family they have just become a title of affection to the point that even now when I call my mom I am greeted on the other line with "Hey stoopy Eric!" and I know that it is meant in the most loving way possible.

Another random word that my family shares is the word "pinkie." To my family a pinkie is a spoon, and to be more precise a breakfast spoon. Not that there is a difference between kinds of spoons to us but in the morning at the Anderson house we use a pinkie to eat cereal or grapefruit or anything else you eat with a spoon. Pinkie originated from when I was very young, maybe three or four and my family would go to Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors ice cream. They give you the pink plastic spoons for your ice cream and from that I gathered connected the utensil to the color and came up with pinkie. From then on out I loved those spoons so much that my mom would save them from our trips to Baskin Robbins and I would use a pinkie every morning to eat my breakfast until I got older. Even after I no longer used the Baskin Robbins spoons, my sister and I would make sure we got a pinkie with our breakfast and my mom always knew exactly what we meant.