Words all obviously have their meanings. All we have to do is hop over to dictionary.com to find any of them. And in fact, anytime I use a “big” or “sophisticated” word, I tend to go make sure that I’m actually using it right, so I don’t look like a big goober. It’s not that I’m trying to “look smart” I just don’t want to “look dumb” by being wrong when I can check it.
But it’s not always so simple. Sometimes words are words we made up, or sarcastic words, or joking words, or sarcastic joking words. And it depends very much on the person saying them, who they’re saying them to, and the foundational relationship of those two people. Inside jokes fit very well inside this motif, but it’s not just jokes.
People in close relationships tend to develop their own special kind of language that people on the outside won’t necessarily get unless they know both people. This was illustrated to me the other day.
I’ve lost maybe 45 pounds since my heaviest weight. I’m now very healthily back in the normal BMI category and much closer to feeling like “me” again. One of my closest friends who was here mostly for the “fat years” has relabeled me in her cell phone. My new name that pops up when I call is, “Itty Bitty McSkinnypants.”
I told one of my online friends about it. And he says: “Sounds like someone is jealous.” Then it occurs to me. Maybe it would sound like that to people who don’t know Lisa. Lisa isn’t a jealous person. And she makes up goofy words and names for everyone and everything. While from some women it might be jealousy, from Lisa, it’s affirmation, and it’s funny as hell.
July 3, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I make certain jokes in my relationship that are ludicrous in terms of the words we are actually using. It’s just inside stuff. I have friends who are “queens”–and I call them that and THEY call themselves that . . . but if someone hostile to gays called them that, we’d both be incensed. Words are words, letters. Intention is everything, I guess.
E
July 3, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Definitely Erica. Not everyone has ‘poking with a stick’ rights to every person. But those we are super close to, we can play with a little because everyone knows there is no venom in it.
July 3, 2008 at 9:44 pm
In my wip, one sister calls the other “bitch.” She uses it as kind of an endearment. Hmm, I just thought of something… Gotta go and put it in my book.
July 3, 2008 at 10:09 pm
hehe Edie, yeah I call people bitches, plural for one person. I think I put the -es on the end of it partly cause I think it’s funny to pluralize a title for one person, and partly because no one in their right mind can take “bitches” as a greeting as me “calling them a bitch” in the mean way.