I was listening to NPR on my way to work again today and Talk of the Nation had another really interesting segment on. It was about words, how they're started, ones that people just make up, what their original meaning was.
So, now I'm thinking about words. Which makes me think of Hamlet... But back to the point. There's a couple of words that I use regularly that I've either never heard anyone else use, or I've only heard used by friends/co-workers.
The first one that I use a lot is "piffle-fribbits." It can be used as just "piffle" as well. I call it my frustration word. I don't swear, and I got sick of using words like "dang it" "drat" etc... I don't know where/when I first used it, but I like it. I even caught my dad saying it once! A lot of times if I just say "piffle" a friend will finish it for me and say "fribits."
Another word that I use now I actually got from a friend, and it's for a kinda gross bodily function type thing. The word is "vershlook." It means "to choke on your own saliva." If this has never happened to you it sounds absolutely disgusting, but if it has.... this is the perfect word for it! Now, when I'm coughing and someone says "what happened?" I can just say "I vershlooked" It sounds much better than "I choked on my own spit."
The last word I'm going to bore you with is one that I hear at work all the time, "efforting." If I'm waiting for my sports scripts and go bug the sports guy, many times he will say "I'm efforting!" He's working on getting them done and to me. I've never heard this noun/verb word outside of TV people (for whom it is pretty common). Has anyone else heard it?