John recently got a pair of chukka boots that he can wear in the winter that go with both work and school outfits- apparently wearing his shiny dress shoes to class made him feel a little silly. John was not familiar with the term “chukka”, so when he was describing to me what he wanted and I said “oh, like chukkas?” he said “what? What are Chumbawumbas?”
And now he calls them his Chumbawumba boots, and I have that absolutely insanely annoying “Tubthumping” song in my head on a weekly basis. Thanks, John!
As much as I regret the fact that I have had a mid-90s one-hit wonder earworm for the past three weeks, I actually love these little mishearings that become a part of a family’s personal vernacular. My sister in particular is famous for these. When she was little, whenever she wanted to go sledding, she would demand that my mom get out her “snowsnoot,” a word my family uses instead of “snow suit” to this day. She’s also the queen of the Malapropism- we still tease her about time when, as a preteen whining about some grave injustice that had been done to her, she said “I hate this family! I always get the short end of the shaft!”
There are others: we all call my grandmother “Gummy” because my oldest cousin couldn’t say “grammy” correctly, and when we’re feeling something is particularly unfair, we’ll say that it “bites the baboon” (my sister’s childhood mishearing of “bites the big one.”)
Any good ones in your family?
* From the classic Friends scene:
A favorite of mine and a close childhood friend involves me hearing her say “tacky tampons.”
When in reality it was “khaki pants on.”
This isn’t my family but people at work say “flush out” ALL THE TIME when they mean “flesh out.” It drives me CRAZY.
OK, that isn’t quite the cute little thing you were looking for, but ARGH.
My family calls me Krissie. And my youngest couldn’t say it when he was little and called me Skippy. My mom will still call me that every now and then.
My friend in college thought the line in the Dave Matthew’s song Crash (I think it is that song) was “hike up your skirt, little boy” instead of “hike up your skirt a little more.”
When William was 2, he pronounced Christmas “Scrimtion.” So now we still call it that. Henry said tummy and bellybutton “pummy” and “bee-bun,” so we say that too. I can’t remember which child (Henry, I THINK) called muffins “fuffins,” but now we all do.
oh man! i want more of these! my family now seems inadequate!
one that i HOPE to never let my bf forget is when we were in home depot and saw some enormous cans of oil for (i think?) frying entire turkeys or the like, and he goes “why does that say “OMG CHOLESTEROL!” on it?” it actually said “0 mg cholesterol.” heh. but whenever we see something neat now, i exclaim “OMG CHOLESTEROL!”
Those are awesome. I love things like that, too.
my daughter used to call cheeseburgers “cheeseburbas”, so we still use that one.
Doo-ta-doo = the toilet paper roll because that is the sound you make when you are 5 and using it as trumpet.
TV box = remote control because according to my parents there was a time when it really was a box connected to the tv by a cord that changed the channel.
We call my grandpa, “Paca” because I couldn’t pronounce it correctly. (All of the other grandkids still call him that.)
I used to think a “sty in the eye” was a “pig’s sty”.
And I think Joey and I shared this one for a while: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwYpSCrlHU