"Anyone can speak Troll. All you have to do is point and grunt."
-Fred Weasley, from
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Mr. Potion and I...we kind of have our own language. And I don't mean that
we've studied linguistics and developed our own method of communication,
complete with alphabet and grammatical rules and such. Nope, that was
J. R. R. Tolkien, not us.
But we do have a
whole bunch of words sprinkled throughout our everyday conversation that
mean absolutely nothing to anybody else and something very specific to
us- and this is outside of memespeak / internet language. I realized
the full extent of this the other day when I got off the phone with Mr. Potion at work and was met with the confused stares of my coworkers.
And so Hive, I'm going to give you a crash-course in how to speak Potion!
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berries (beh - rees) (n.) 1. The act of making fart noises by pressing one's mouth against another person's skin; 2. see also: a "raspberry"
ex. "If you give me berries again, I'm going to punch you in the face."
Mr. Potion likes to tickle me because it makes me squeal loudly and
flail about violently. I, on the other hand, don't particularly enjoy
it- hence the squealing and the flailing. He also occasionally likes to
blow raspberries on my arm. Or stomach. Or cheek. Ew. Once, I was
talking about what we should have for dessert after dinner, and I had a
pint of strawberries in my fridge.
"Ooh- I want some berries!"
Big mistake.
"You want some berries, huh?"
And then the fart noises began. I have to be sure to avoid the
word "berries" in conversation now, because it doesn't mean fruit.
boodergad (boo - dur - gad) (adj.) (n.) (v.) (adv.) Ambiguous curse word; could be used as any part of speech; often preceded by the word
das
ex. "Urgh this stupid- freaking- boodergad- wireless router..."
Sooooo sometimes I talk to fast, and when I do, I screw up my
words. Heh. For some reason, Mr. Potion was singing "Santa Claus is
Coming to Town" and he got the lyrics wrong- he said "he knows if you've
been good or bad." So I rushed in to correct him- my
favorite thing to do- only I tripped over my words, so what I said was, "no, it's
bood or gad-
I mean- urgh!" Once Mr. Potion was able to breathe properly after a
healthy fit of laughter, he commented that it sounded like something an
angry German guy might shout- "DAS BOODERGAD!" So now, if we find
ourselves in a stressful situation and want to avoid cursing, this is
one of the sillier words we throw out there instead of an actual
expletive.
face (fayss) (adj.) (n.) (v.) (adv.) f*ck
ex. "We're never going to beat this level of Super Mario Bros. Wii! Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!"
This one started at
the camp where we met. Cursing was against the rules, so Mr. Potion started the trend of using the word "face" in place of the f-word. Of course, this just led to us inventing circumstances to "curse" as often as possible. "Aw, face!" could be heard during much of our preparations for the various engineering challenges during the week. To be honest, we don't use this one very often any more, but if either one of us sends a text with only the word FACE, we know they're having a bad day.
Gorilla Bars (gore - ih - luh bahrs) (n.) Quaker brand Chewy granola bars
ex. "I'm running late, so I'll have a Gorilla Bar for breakfast."
Kids say the darnedest things, and this is one of them.
When Mr. Potion was little, he misinterpreted his mom when she referred
to these snacks as granola bars; he heard the word "gorilla" instead of
"granola" and called them that until he learned how to read.
The moment I heard this story, I thought it was the cutest thing EVER
and have called these tasty treats Gorilla Bars (it's a proper brand
name, y'all) ever since.
IHOPs (eye - hops) (n.) IHoP
ex. "After Church on Sunday, let's have IHOPs for breakfast!"
I
have no idea why we pluralized the name of this restaurant, but we
did. We never say "Let's go to IHoP," we say "Let's eat IHOPs," as if that's the proper term for food one eats at an IHoP. We're
weird, in case you can't tell.
Project Runaway (prah - jekt ruhn - uh - way) (n.) Project Runway
ex. "Can I call you back? I'm watching
Project Runaway."
I love me some Heidi Klum. I got a sewing machine for my birthday
last year and have used it for lots of small, household projects, along
with some Christmas presents, but so far, the only clothing I've sewn
was for my cousin's Barbie. I do love to fantasize that one day, I'll
be making my own super chic clothes, and I love to live vicariously
through the contestants on
Project Runway and admire the immense
creativity and insane amount of work required for that competition. And
so, of course, if Mr. Potion is over at my place when I'm watching it,
he has to sit down with me and watch. And after a couple of seasons of
this forced viewing...he's become a (reluctant) fan of the show! It got
to the point where, last season, he actually knew the names of the
three finalists, could identify the designer by their work, and agreed
with me that Anya is SO overrated. ("I mean, she's hot, but all those
models are wearing the same thing- a sheet that barely covers their
boobs.") Still, in an effort to preserve his Man Card, he feels the
need to tease me when I talk about the show, so he calls it
Project Runaway...but the joke's on him, because I call it that now, too!
spood (spood) (n.) 1. food you eat with a spoon; 2. food
ex. "I just got off work- what should I have for spood?"
This one was actually Mr. Potion. I don't
remember the exact context, but the words "spoon" and "food" were coming
out of his mouth at the same time and this is what happened.
Originally, we defined "spood" to mean food you eat with a spoon, but it
has since evolved into meaning just food in general. We often use it
in place of the word "eat"; you don't say "What do I want to eat?" you
say "What do I want for spood?"
T & A Special (Tee and Ay Spe - shull) (n.) An order at IHOP for an appetizer serving of mozzarella sticks and a short stack of pancakes.
ex. "I think I'm going to order a T & A special!"
So first of all, this isn't as dirty as it sounds- these are
our initials.
One time, we were at IHOP for dinner, and I was torn between what I
wanted to eat. I wanted something fried and dinner-y but then again we
were at IHOP- I wanted some pancakes. Mr. Potion suggested I just go
ahead and get both- so I did! Mozzarella sticks for an appetizer, a
short stack of pancakes for the main course- and he did the same. AND
IT WAS AWESOME. It has since become our go-to meal at IHOP, so we've
nicknamed it the T & A Special- because the caveat is that we're
only allowed to order it if we're together.
Taco Hell (tah - koh hehl) (n.) Taco Bell
ex. "Let's go get hungover food at Taco Hell."
This is all Mr. Potion. I'm pretty sure it originated from
the fact that sometimes, when one eats Taco Bell, one regrets it almost
immediately.
two-shoe (too - shoo) (v.) to urinate
ex. "I have to two-shoe; I drank too much wine."
This
one is really weird but here we go. The majority of our relationship
prior to getting engaged was long-distance; after we met at camp, we
were pen pals who spoke on the phone about once a month for 3 years, and
then we officially dated from a distance for 3 years. This means that
almost the entirety of our relationship occurred over the phone; we got
very good at our communication skills. In the very beginning, we would
spend hours- sometimes entire Saturdays- on the phone, talking about
everything and nothing, never wanting to hang up. This was especially
weird for Mr. Potion who has always been rather introverted and never
enjoyed talking on the phone with
anyone. In fact, we'd be on the phone so long, that if one or the other of us needed to use the bathroom, we'd just leave the phone for a few moments and then come back and continue. Only, as I'm a girl, I take a
bit longer in the bathroom than he does, and one time he figured this might be too long to wait on a dead line.
He then proceeded to try to convince me to stay on the phone
while I went to the bathroom. He pulled the "if you love me you'll do
it" line, which didn't work. He tried bribing me with pretty things,
which didn't work. He told me he'd buy me a pair of shoes, which didn't
work.
"I'll buy you TWO pairs of shoes!"
"...Two pairs of shoes?"
"TWO PAIRS OF SHOES!"
So I continued our phone conversation while I went to the
bathroom. It is the single weirdest thing I've ever done with a
boyfriend in my entire life. We refer to it as the Two Shoe Challenge,
and after that, we'd say "It's time for a Two Shoe Challenge!" if either
of us needed to excuse ourselves to the bathroom; this evolved into
just the word two-shoe.
(For the record, I didn't get the shoes. Instead, he bought me
the Halloween costume I'd been eying when I said I didn't want to spend
money on a costume. Not the same as two pairs of shoes but still
totally worth it.)
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Do you and your spouse have your own language? Do you have any inside jokes that pepper your everyday conversation?
