What's a word from your childhood that was unique to your family, or that you never hear anymore?

Bumper. This was the word we used to call the end of the loaf of bread. I never liked the bumpers.

- Monster. That was the word my brother and I used for anyone we found scary.
– Disease. That was the word we used for any member of the family when they acted inappropriately.
– Sheep. That was the word we used to describe my brother and me when Dad told us to go to bed.

Please and thank you.

I always loved bumpers, @chyna. i.e. “Heels.”

Delbert. It was the word we (my sister and I) used for a nerdy or dorky person.
“Eww, he’s such a Delbert.”
(Not to be confused with Dilbert which was a cartoon that came out much later.)

My mom and I had a sound effect from the scarecrow in a children’s sound effect book , It was du duo d do .

ah’muh’fixin’ta

The satin lining at the end of a blanket is called the Bickers.

Bumpers rule.

My dad had one called ’‘fungo’’. This basically meant ’‘hurry up’’. Like if we were going somewhere and I was taking too long to put my coat on or whatever, he’d be like, okay fungo fungo fungo! Apparently he got that from my uncle.

I have never heard anyone else use ‘bodger’ for the TV remote control. My boyfriend laughed when he first heard me say it but he uses it all the time now!

Ravioli – Irish teabags

The siblings and I made a habit of labeling greedy behavior and those exhibiting it as sailfish.

Bunch. It was, for some inexplicable reason, my mother’s nickname for me, and hearing it always made me feel loved. No other family member ever used it.

@chyna, I love the word bumper. Never heard it before, but it’s the part of a loaf of sour dough I love most—plain or spread with a thick chunk of butter.

@ucme Ha what’s up behind that? Why Irish tea bags?

@Symbeline Ravioli looks kinda like teabags, there’s been jokes about the Irish being dumb for generations over here, a traditional target for gags.
So, ravioli are dumb looking teabags, not big or clever or particularly funny even, but there ya go :)

Mrs McCrutchie is bread fried in an egg and milk mix. I think my Dad made up the word as I’ve never heard of it outside of our family.

@ucme I like ravioli. Not only does it taste good, but they look like little pillows! :D

Scrumps, which are the scraps and crumbs of batter formed when frying fish and chips. It was always a great treat to get extra scrumps. Not only do I never hear the word any more, I never see scrumps served in fish and chip shops. I see the staff scooping them out of the fryers and putting them in the bin and it makes me sad.

@Symbeline Yeah, I hope they don’t steal them from the posh mice in Italy :(

Meechie is shabby or worn looking. I’m the only one I know that says it, yet everyone seems to know what I mean.

My daughter who has always been extremely sensitive to over stimulation would say “to much moshie” when there was to much activity or sound or even smells going on. Now the whole family uses it and she’s 32. Still sensitive.

Oops. I didn’t mean “meechie”, I meant “moemy”. I think ‘meechy’ might be a word? If not, it goes a lot farther back in my family.

They mean basically the same thing. ‘Moemy’ is perhaps a bit lower.

@Leanne1986 Where the heck did “bodger” come from?
@downtide We always called those the “crispys”.

Mom used to use the term ‘bugger” as in “He’s a cheeky little bugger”.

Unique? Every bugger says bugger, still do. Bugger me sideways.

@ucme not it Texas.

Really? I thought cousins would bugger each other frequently there.

lol

Candies are called ‘happies’ and trashy people are called ‘fautches’.

Any idea where ‘fautches’ came from, @KNOWITALL? When I was a kid we called them “ricks” and I suspect it was because of the large local Ricky family. :/

How about dursen’t or durse not? As in you dursen’t eat that candy before dinner. My grandmother would always use this word and sometimes people in my family still will but I’ve never heard anyone else.

@Juliasmile That’s a regional British word meaning “dare not”. Primarily Yorkshire but I hear it in the north east and east midlands as well.

@downtide Interesting, my grandmother was Pennsylvania Dutch. Thank you.

@rojo Not a clue, it was used long before I was born I believe!
@flutherother My family always called that Eggy-Bread. Mrs McCrutchie is much better!

@ucme I believe you are thinking of Arkansas, or possibly Alabama; one of those “A” states. Here in Texas we have calves….....and the occasional goat.

We always call the glove compartment in the car a “jockey box.” Bumpers were those chrome things on the front and back of cars and trucks.

Do you know why the ‘glove box’ was known as the ‘jockey box’, @kritiper? I’ve never heard it, even though I agree about chrome bumpers.

@ibstubro It’s a term for the tool box on horse-drawn wagons of times past. At that time it may have been called a jockey’s box.

I’ve often considered how quaint it is to call the dash storage in a car, “glove box”.