Can I have a private word?

If anyone is tired and grumpy they’re ‘gritchy’.

The Chap has requested just one thing for Father’s Day: to partake in the delights of the little-visited Broccoli Restaurant. Cue whoops of delight from five broccoli-starved family members; even takeaway will do. You see, the poor deprived head of the family doesn’t get to this restaurant often enough, and isn’t happy about it. The Broccoli Restaurant is our euphemism for Maccas, stemming from the early days of parenthood purity when the good intentions of the house’s Bad Cop (yours truly) had to be thwarted by any means. So off to the Broccoli Restaurant the Chap would occasionally sneak his junk-starved toddlers, with strict instructions as to what it must be called in my presence.

BBC Radio 4 recently celebrated euphemisms, mashups and misheard words peculiar to particular families, sometimes extending over generations. It called for listeners to contribute long-held gems and came up with some bobby-dazzlers. My favourite among many is quite possibly “mikewarm”, from a child who complained that their pizza wasn’t hot enough – but they couldn’t remember the correct term, just knew it had a man’s name in it.

“Decapitated coffee” came from a great grandmother who once said it accidentally. “Barking shark”, the optimum mouth-opening moment for thorough teeth-cleaning. “Pictureback”, from a sister struggling to remember the word for reflection. “Holidays” for a patch of lawn missed when mowing. “Mashie tatter” for potato masher. “Frousy”, the dry smell for clothes put away damp. And another favourite, “teapotting”, the act of going into a room to get something then forgetting what it was, and while racking the brain to remember one hand ends up on the hip like a handle, the other slightly extended like a spout.

“Click time”, when the last person but one is out the door and the one remaining has a lovely stretch of “click time”, alone. “Hunkerpot”, an affectionate term for hunk. Putting your “good eye” to the sky to weather watch. One family calling the ice-cream van “the fish van” and another the “happy music truck” so that kids wouldn’t endlessly run out to it. “Ifits” for leftovers, from “if it fits in the fridge then you’re having it”. “Percharge” – the percentage an iPad has been charged. And an extremely current one, “hanitiser” for hand sanitiser.

Then there are family phrases that veer into poetry. To “touch with your eyes”: to look at someone longingly. “Fiercing for”: wanting something very much. “Winky” or “spinky” for something sour like lemons. “Scrubble”, a mix of a scratch and a rub of the cat under the chin. “Smuthacate”, a combination of suffocate and smother in a hug. And fon-fon-cay (in a mock French accent), for anything super fancy.

For us, downlights in a ceiling will forever be “tuttle kigh”, from a toddler intrigued by the turtles in the sky. “To wind away” stems from another being scared to lower the car window in high wind, for fear they’d be blown away. The “clicker” is the car indicator, the “clacker” the remote control and “fuzzy water” sparkling mineral water. If anyone is tired and grumpy they’re “gritchy” or “schmankle”. The dog has been called “furry bitey” (even though she does not); and then there’s the profoundly undignified but apt “Mrs Wobblebottom”.

A priceless new phrase has just crept into the family lexicon: “throw rocks off a cliff”. Which a teenage son declared recently he was going to do, late one night, to the rest of the family’s bewilderment. It turned out he was meeting a new girlfriend for the first time and was trying to throw us off the scent. Mate, it didn’t work. And now whenever there’s the slightest whiff of romance in the air, from any of them, the rest of us talk of rocks being thrown off a cliff. Poor little chapulet.

Do you have any words or phrases particular to your household? I’d love to hear them.