Family Words

Growing up, there were words and phrases used in my family that no one else used. I never really thought about them until I was much older. They were just a part of my life. They were mostly German in origin, and once I really started thinking about them and where they came from, my grandmother was long gone and I couldn’t ask her anymore. I had to do some research in my German/English dictionary and Google translator. I also consulted my brother, who is fluent in German.

“Schlook” was a term I heard a lot as a kid. I’d have a soda and maybe my mom would say “Hey, can I have a schlook of that?” Or I would say the same to my brother. Or someone would offer a person a schlook of something. The word is spelled “schluck” and means “sip”.

There was a heavy duty metal cart on wheels that lived in our garage and had all manner of cleaning supplies and rags piled on it. It was called The Hoodlum Cart. Q: Where’s the silver polish? A: It’s on the hoodlum cart. Q: Do we have an old toothbrush? A: Look on the hoodlum cart. The original word is from old German: hudelum. It means disorderly. And the hoodlum cart was certainly in disorder. 

“Saboola” was from a rhyme that my brother and I made up when we were very little. It went like this: “Hallelujah, hallelujah. Mashed potatoes and saboola.” And this is my spelling of the word. My grandmother said saboola meant onions. This is the one I had to ask my brother about, since his resources were greater than mine. This is what he wrote me: Saboola could actually be a morphed form of the German for onion, which is Zwiebel (pronounced suh-VEE-bool).  Could easily be that somewhere along the line somebody forgot the middle syllable, and came up with suh-BOOL-uh.

Now for words from Marv’s family. Of German origin, and again, the spelling is phonetic:

“Kanuppled” and Katiltered”—both mean askew, bent, awry, etc. “My fender was all kanuppled up.” “You put that bedspread on all katiltered.”  Here is my brother’s answer:  The German word is Knuppel, which means bat or cudgel, so if something is knuppelt (or geknuppelt), it is battered or beat up.  Same thing with getiltered; the ge- prefix and -ed (or in German simply -t) ending is just a past tense construction, so any verb can fit in the middle: getilted, ge-this-ed, ge-that-ed. 

The last phrase I have is from my family (with my spelling). This was said whenever someone went somewhere: “I’ll river.”

This was usually said first by the person leaving, and then whoever was nearby would respond in kind. This was said for YEARS. Many times I was the person responding. I had no clue why this was said and I didn’t think to ask. It was just a traditional saying as far as I knew. I don’t know how old I was before I finally realized this was actually the French phrase, “au revoir,” intentionally mispronounced as a joke.  I felt SO DUMB. Up until then, I would always have this little mental picture of someone sailing down a river in a tiny boat…I kinda miss that…