“Sor-sor.”
That’s probably the most catchy ism that one of my family members has infused in our own language. Whenever we’re kind of sorry about something, the word “sorry” isn’t used. But sor-sor is. (Pronounced sahr-sahr.)
“Oh. No, sister. You’re right. Your hair doesn’t look very good today. Sor-sor.”
That was the brain child of my cousin. She’s full of funny.
But Skip (my man), when he was a kid, he used to say “bad-okiko” when something was really, really bad. Like, evil bad.
“That man in the black trench coat carrying a shiv is a bad-okiko.”
So now, I’ve started saying things are something-okiko. (Pronounced oh-kee-koh.)
“Check out that flying donkey. It’s weird-okiko.”
And my son. For some reason, he started saying sottsoy when he was around 4 years old. He would say “sottsoy” and then spell it out “s-o-t-t-s-o-y.”
We never, ever really knew what a sottsoy was. So now, when I’m not sure what something is or what it does, I say it’s sottsoy.
“What? That thing over there with a lever and a ball of mud? I have no idea what it is. It’s probably a sottsoy.”
AND …
My nephew, who’s now 4, when he could barely talk, ran around my parents’ house saying “MISHY MISH” and pointing. We would ask him, “Is this the mishy mish?” and he would say yes or no.
My cat, the big one, is now mostly named Mishy Mish.
I’m fascinated by the way these weird things have eked into our language. So much so that it’s not even QUESTIONED when one of us says it. It’s just a part of us – our weird family – and makes us just a tiny bit more cohesive all together.
So, given that I’m all obsessed about this right now, I want to know if any of you have any weird family-isms.
Or are we just really strange people?
