For as long as I can remember, my family has had a sort of secret, unique language\u2014ok, more of a vocabulary<\/i> I\u2019d say. I can\u2019t imagine that I am the only one who could claim this, especially among my southern friends since southerners just automatically affix their own twists to words and sayings or at the very least they change the pronunciation of words. And I say \u201cchange\u201d the pronunciation, because saying \u201cthey pronounce them wrong\u201d\u2014well, that would just be rude to someone\u2019s grandmother somewhere, and I don\u2019t play that game.<\/p>\n
Being part of a family with a deep southern history spanning several generations comes with glorious opportunities to be exposed to a diverse cast of characters, each one of them only strange to your friend who is \u201cvisiting from Connecticut,\u201d but never to you or anyone else on the family tree.<\/p>\n
You have no trouble understanding them and their special dialect. When they use a word that doesn\u2019t fit, you immediately know what they mean, and merely pause over the mishap while others are still perplexed. I\u2019ve even had to say \u201che means\u2026\u201d<\/i> and then launch into a quick round of Password <\/i>and exchange a confirmation nod with the confused. <\/i><\/p>\n
<\/i>For example in my family, the word \u201csalmon\u201d<\/i> has an \u201cL\u201d in it. It just does. They use the letter \u201cL\u201d in \u201csalmon\u201d with pride like lesbians use the letter \u201cL\u201d in the word \u201clesbian<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nothing to be ashamed of. It\u2019s a perfectly good letter. It\u2019s there. Why not use it?<\/p>\n
When I was a kid we had \u201cSa-L-mon patties\u201d and we ate canned \u201cSa-L-mon\u201d\u2013we didn\u2019t call it \u201cSa-mon\u201d and we didn\u2019t eat smoked \u201cSa-mon\u201d\u2014as in smoked salmon and bagels. Oh who am I kidding? We didn\u2019t eat bagels either.<\/p>\n
We ate biscuits<\/i>. The only thing I knew that existed for breakfast that had a hole in it was a doughnut. I walked twelve blocks for a bagel in New York City once under the recommendation of a friend and afterwards my exact words to her were, \u201cWe walked twelve blocks for this<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n
You bagel-lovers please don\u2019t write to me. I promise I won\u2019t care that I offended you, and I\u2019ll probably just write an entire blog entry about biscuits and pussycat gravy next week out of spite\u2014but anyway, back to my point here\u2026<\/p>\n
My daddy, for one, comes with a unique ability to ardently and \u201ccreatively\u201d pronounce anything that isn\u2019t written on the sports page. In fact, he pronounces his order at our neighborhood Mexican restaurant so effectively he can\u2019t even identify it when the waiter comes to deliver it. The poor waiter, standing at the end of our table with his asbestos glove, holding a dish that has been baked in Satan\u2019s oven, calls out, \u201cBurrito Fundido? Burrito Fundido?\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally as his shirt sleeve is igniting from the heat of the 900 degree plate he\u2019s holding the waiter desperately shouts \u201cBurrito Fundido!\u201d My mama asks my daddy,\u00a0\u201cDon, what did you order?\u201d<\/p>\n
And with all seriousness, and with absolutely no sense of urgency to the waiter whose sleeve is now smoking he answers, \u201cI don\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
The waiter, slides the molten lava burrito in front of my daddy, and then, I\u2019m sure, he heads to the nearest burn center.<\/p>\n
One Friday night my daddy looked at the waiter and, with conviction, ordered the\u00a0\u201cBurrito Sayonara<\/i>\u201d \u2013yes, as if he was saying \u201cgoodbye\u201d to his Japanese burrito.<\/p>\n
There had been some idle chit chat going on at the table up until we heard the words escape his mouth, and we all rushed to his rescue like he\u2019d accidentally called the waiter a racial slur.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe means the \u2018Burrito Sonora<\/i>!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
My daddy looks at us all confused,\u201cThat\u2019s what I said, Burrito Sayonara,\u201d <\/i>as the waiter giggled his way back into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Luckily, the waiter had a great sense of humor, and when he delivered our dinner to us moments later he put my daddy\u2019s in front of him and announced with a grin and the perfect amount of smart ass, \u201cBurrito Sayonara.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n
To which my daddy turned to all of us and said, \u201cSee there! I did say it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
My daddy\u2019s talents for foreign language do not just hang out south of the border, he\u2019s quick to give us a giggle when he orders Chinese food as well, because he likes his meal to come with, not a bowl of \u201cwonton\u201d soup, but a piping hot bowl of \u201cwong-tong<\/i>\u201d soup. My mama and I actually wait for it, and have to stifle our nose snorts when he says it.<\/p>\n
For fear that someone thinks I\u2019m picking on my poor daddy, I\u2019ll move on to others just as deserving. My grandmother, for instance would complain that going to the grocery store on a day when they predicted snow in the Atlanta area was nothing but a \u201cfiesta!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Of course she meant \u201cfiasco<\/i>,\u201d but fiesta sounded like so much fun and also sounded like a margarita might be involved\u2014that we all adopted the term. To this day anything taxing for any of us in my family gets labeled as a \u201cfiesta,\u201d and we laugh because, well, sometimes we wish it was.<\/p>\n My grandmother was also fond of \u201cparm-eee-zian\u201d (parmesan) cheese on her \u201cI-I-Italian spaghetti.\u201d She ate \u201cVi-eeena\u201d (Vienna) sausages and saltine crackers and liked \u201cSi-men-eeze\u201d (Siamese) cats. In fact, we\u2019ve jokingly used the word, \u201cSi-men-eeze\u201d so often, I have to be careful not to actually mispronounce \u201cSiamese\u201d when I see one.<\/p>\n These little nuances of individualized language are just one of the little joys a person gets to keep after you\u2019ve said goodbye to your parents or grandparents. They stay with you, similar to the ones small children make when first learning to talk. You immortalize them, along with the people who used them, and somehow that memory and that special word or pronunciation gets to remain alive\u2013 as that person does\u2013 in your heart. And the best part? They are never, ever negative recollections.<\/p>\n My grandfather loved to visit any restaurant that served \u201ccafeteria style,\u201d and his next favorite thing was to tell you about his meal in vivid detail. I really think he enjoyed that part more than the food.<\/p>\n \u201cThey had the best trout a la mode you ever tasted!\u201d He\u2019d offer us. And if one of us said, \u201cYou mean Trout Almondine<\/i>?\u201d He\u2019d nod and reply \u201cYep, trout a la mode,\u201d without hesitation.<\/p>\n He was great at providing us with little idioms over the years, even ones that weren\u2019t funny except for how literal they were\u2013like the time he pointed to the page on a menu and told my mama to order him a \u201cvarious<\/i> wine<\/i>,\u201d because well, that\u2019s how they were listed on the menu. Couldn\u2019t fault him on that one.<\/p>\n One of the best parts of having toddlers in your life is some of the funny things they say. Several of which end up being permanent parts of a family\u2019s vocabulary. My nephew frequently asked for a \u201ccock-in-tail<\/i>\u201d for himself when my mama would pour herself a glass of wine in the evening, and referenced his full tummy after eating to feeling like he was gonna \u201cromit<\/i>.\u201d To this day, that term is jokingly used after every big family meal at our house. Imagine my husband\u2019s surprise, years ago, when his co-worker told him that she was flying home to India to get married and showed him a picture of her handsome fiance, saying his name was \u201cRomit.\u201d \u2013sometimes life just has a shameless sense of humor.<\/p>\n My son, Rooster, used to love Cracker Barrel restaurant when he was a tiny boy. Anytime we traveled we\u2019d stop for a meal, and he\u2019d pop his head up from the back seat, see the familiar orange and brown sign, and say with such delight\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cCrackhead<\/i> Barrel! I love Crackhead<\/i> Barrel!\u201d<\/p>\n Poor Cracker Barrel restaurant never knew how the mistreatment of their beloved name offered us such laughs just as sure as it offered us delicious chicken and dumplings.<\/p>\n In fact, one of my greatest fears is to end up as one of those seemingly forgotten relatives hanging on the walls of Cracker Barrel. Every time we eat there I think about it, and I find myself looking around at the old black and white photos wondering whose grandparents they are, and how their picture ended up there instead of on the dining room wall of some loving relatives\u2019 home. Did they say \u201ctrout a la mode<\/i>\u201d too? Did they eat \u201cVi-eeena\u201d<\/i> sausages and saltine crackers? Did they have funny words or phrases that are still being used fondly by their younger relatives today? Can those relatives still hear their voices and their expressions in their heads? And more disturbing, how did my 3-year-old even know the word crackhead<\/i>?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know the answer to those questions, but I do know that Cracker Barrel doesn\u2019t serve bagels, or \u201ccock-in-tails,\u201d or any \u201cvarious<\/i> wines,\u201d and I\u2019m usually so gloriously full after eating the biscuits and gravy or a big bowl of the chicken and dumplings that I wish I could\u2026quite frankly\u2026\u201cromit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For as long as I can remember, my family has had a sort of secret, unique language\u2014ok, more of a vocabulary I\u2019d say. I can\u2019t imagine that I am the only one who could claim this, especially among my southern friends since southerners just automatically affix their own twists to words and sayings or at … <\/p>\n