by Laura Falin posted in Life

Does your family have secret words or a family language that only you all understand"
You're not alone. Last week, doctoral language student Iva Cheung asked people on Twitter what words their families made up. She called it "familiolect" (like a dialect, but just in your own family)...and she got some wonderful responses. Often these start as mispronunciations from little kids (my favorite), or inside jokes that only your family gets.

zupp (vowel sounds like book): the thing you do when a cup or bowl of liquid is filled too high to safely lift to your mouth, so you bring your mouth to the cup/bowl instead. do others say this"
— alexandra j. roberts (@lexlanham) January 12, 2018
Okay, that makes total sense to me.
Growing up, we had a number of these in our house. My sister would always talk about going to the dentist, where he jizzled her teeth to get them clean (also makes perfect sense -- both of those words sound exactly like what they mean!). She also frinkled a lot.

Once my husband misread a sign that said "Dinosaur Journey" and the kids now like to ask for dinosaur jerky as a tasty snack. And when my son was learning to read, he read the "U.S. Bank" sign as "us bank" -- so of course that's what we all call it now.
Hoda Kotb shared on TODAY that when her daughter delivers "the big message," it's time for a diaper change.

"Bottom event" = a baby has either p...