Ok, so my family is strange....

That goes without saying. But conversations around the holiday table (when kept civil) are usually quite entertaining. Many times we reminisce on how much trouble so-n-so got away with, who smoked the first ciggy, who got busted selling pot in high school, who got pregnant the youngest. You know, the usual stuff.

Anyway, this year's turkey talk was about grammar. Not the old one with the wig. Ya know, reading and riting and reciting. Dear Mother was a stickler for good grammar, both spoken and written. And Mom enforced her rule with an iron fist in the shape of a wooden spoon.

Now, I'm not the goodest at proper speaking, and I for sure can't tell a dangling participle from a verb, but she made sure we didn't sound like the government cheese eating brats that we were. Especially in public. But I'm not going to take this time to rehash my youth. This little story is about the turkey talk and how we siblings all realized that because of the wooden spoon, we are very observant of the spoken word. We may not practice all of the learning that dear Mother feared into us, but we listen to others abuse the language. And we laugh. And we talk about it over turkey.

Here's a list of our findings.

Once, to end a phrase:
"Let me look out the window once."
"Could you get me a beer once."
"C'mere once."

Or What, same as above, but more commonly used at the end of a question:
"Could you get me a beer or what?"
"Is it nice outside or what?"
Synonymous with Er No, which is much more common in Northern Wisconsin, otherwise known as the U.P.

Irregardless, a made-up smart person word:
"Irregardless, let's go to the movie anyway."

In So, In That", useless, nonsensical fillers:
I'll buy two tickets and popcorn in that.
Where do you want to sit in so?

Is It, mostly used as an acknowledgement. This is a tricky one, as it can be used as an affirmation or a question:
As a question: 1st person "Sure is nice today." 2nd person "Is It?"
As an affirmation: 1st person "The Packers are doing really well this year." 2nd person - Is It."

Of course, Yooz Guys and its ugly cousin Yooz's Guys's, self explanatory:
"Hey, yooz guys going bowling tonite or what?"
"Which one of yooz's guy's parked me in?"



So, maybe I've made a discovery that my mild o.c.d. is rooted in my upbringing.

Er no?