I Write Short Stories

Unique Words... Something we all do. Some people more than others.  Some do it louder than what's needed.  Some do it too soft to comprehend. Some of us start later than others.   Talking, the most common form of communication.  A series of words put together, some with much thought beforehand and some with no thought at all.  But what makes people unique is the way they talk.    When someone talks, people can tell where they are from within the first few words.  "I'm fixin' to go to Piggly Wiggly" is heard and it's pretty obvious that person is from the south. In the other parts of the country, if you're 'fixin', it doesn't mean going somewhere but actually fixing something that's broken.   Pittsburghers are often detected (and somewhat proud of our uniqueness) by saying "yinz" for the plural of 'you'.   "Where yinz going?" makes perfect sense to me and perfect sense to most people in this part of the country.          But unique language can also be spoken by a person's family.  I heard words and phrases in my family when I was growing up that probably not another soul would understand what is meant.          I think the most distinct phrases came from my Grandma Cannon.  A very small woman born and raised in Mississippi and Alabama that was transplanted to Pennsylvania as a very young woman.   If Grandma was teaching me to make the bed for example, and if I was doing it properly, she was exclaim "That's the kitten's eyeball!!"  As a child, I knew that meant "Good Job!"  Where did that come from?  Who knows.  None of us ever knew where exactly that phrase came from, we just knew it was a good thing.  It was probably passed down by her mother who may have gotten it from one of her parents.    On occasion, we would hear Grandma say:  "You wouldn't be happy in Heaven with a chicken under your arm!" which was used when we were complaining or not appreciating what we had.    We could only speculate that it came from hard times and meant that in Heaven with chicken for food would be the absolute best position for someone to be in, yet they still complained about it.                                                         My father was also a little different with some of his words.  Some were usually said by my father that the whole family found funny.   If I were to say to my sister "Did you toont it?"  She would know what I meant.  "Toont" came from my father getting frustrated at a seat belt that would get stuck and in demonstrating how to pull it properly, angrily he said "See!  You have to toont it!" and with every pull, the word came out.  "Toont, toont, toont!"  We found that so funny and so like my Dad, that we all adopted that word into our vocabulary.             A common term of excitement or frustration used by my father was "Hell's Fire!"  It fits right into my vocabulary when I am exasperated.  So instead of saying "Damn it!  Do what I tell ya!"  It would be "Hell's Fire!  Do what I tell ya!"   and I feel a little bit like my Dad when I say it.                                       My mother often says things that are purposely mispronounced and that we always found funny.  On a hot day, she would state that there was a lot of "humm-i-did-ity outside"  or if someone was very sick, they needed to go to the "emmer-gen-cy room".    Wrong, yes but the point was always made.                    Some phrases we heard growing up were extremely, extremely politically incorrect.  A homosexual would often be described as "odd as a three dollar bill" and if a person of color had extremely kinky hair, it was apparent they were "hit in the head with a nappy stick".  Only spoken in the privacy of our own home, and very, very wrong.                                                           But, that was my family and that's what we heard.  Their personal way of talking and getting their points across, even if the words were made up, improper, politically incorrect or funny only to us.  That's the language I grew up with.  Words that were (and still are) unique.  That's just a small part of what makes me.........me.