Terms of Endearment

Mental Floss (where knowledge junkies get their fix) has a page on Facebook from which I have shamelessly stolen this link because it’s SO worth sharing.  You need never run out of cutesy names for your spouse, children, pets, and best friends ever again.

1. “Mon chou”

French, meaning “my cabbage.”

2. “Schnuckiputzi”

German for “cutie pie.”

3. “Sötnos”

“Sweet nose” in Swedish.

4. “Meu Chuchuzinho”

Portuguese for “my little squash.”

5. “Moya Solnishka”

Russian for “my little sun.”

6. “Mijn Bolleke”

“My little round thing” in Flemish.

7. “Bogárkám”

Hungarian, meaning “my little bug.”

8. “Mi cielito”

“My little sky” in Spanish.

9. “Mijn poepie”

A quirky Dutch term for “my little poop.”

10. “Matakia mou”

Greek for “my little eyes.”

11. “Microbino mio”

“My little microbe” in Italian.

12. “Moosh bekhoradet”

“May a mouse eat you” in Persian.

13. “Mo Chuisle”

Irish for “my pulse.”

14. “Min guldklump”

Danish, meaning “my gold nugget.”

15. “Ma puce”

French for “my flea.”

Personally I am now questioning the sanity of the Persians and the Dutch.

Adding to the fun, here’s another link from Mental Floss with alternatives to saying a simple hello.

1) “What’s the craic?”

How they say “What’s up?” in Ireland. The craic (pronounced “crack”) is the news, gossip, latest goings-on, or the fun times to be planned.

2) “How hops it?”

Be classically cool with this late 19th-century slang for “How’s it going?”

3) “Ahoy”

Add a little jaunty excitement by getting into pirate mode.

4) [Hat tip]

Be the strong, silent type and forgo words entirely with an elegant tip of your hat.

5) “There he/she is!”

Make someone feel like the man or the woman of the hour.

6) “Ciao”

Feeling friendly and cosmopolitan? “Ciao” will set the mood. Add a kiss on each cheek for authenticity.

7) “S.P.D.S.V.B.E.E.V”

Want to write a letter with a classical Latin feel? Open with this abbreviation for Salute plurimam dicit. Si vales, bene est, ego valeo. “Many greetings. If you’re well, then that’s good, and I’m well too.”

8) “Salutations”

Show off your verbal dexterity with this gentleman’s greeting.

9) “Greetings”

Or keep it simple and use the word that means just what it says.

10) “Howdy”

Keep it casual, cowpoke, or get fancier with a full-on “Howdydo?”

11) “Aloha”

Bring a little mellow sunshine to your interactions by greeting the Hawaiian way.

12) “Namaste”

Start with a show of respect. This peaceful greeting comes from the Sanskrit for “I bow to you.”

13) “How’s tricks?”

You’ve got to smile when you dust off this gem from the 1920s.

14) “Breaker, breaker”

Open the conversation like a trucker on a CB radio.

15) “Well, look at you!”

Reminiscent of the sweet way your grandma used to express how impressed she was with you. Why not spread the love around with this opening?

And why not choose a random number from each list and combine the two??  It’s not like you have anything better to do on a Sunday, right?  Well maybe you do.  I don’t.

So –  How hops it, schnuckiputzi?  Microbino mio – well – just look at you!

The possibilities are truly mind-boggling. But that’s what Mental Floss is all about, boggles for the mind.  And there you go.  Don’t ever say I have never contributed to your brain scrambled weekend.

Three Things One More Time

I’m still slogging through a revsion process and came across the following  effort which seemed worth another look and a re-do.  Please feel free to copy the headings and fill in your own answers!  I have no idea where it came from in the first place – probably one of those annoying chain type e-mails.

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:

1. Lin

2. Mom

3. GrandmaGrandmaGrandma!

THREE THINGS YOU DON’T EVER WANT TO BE CALLED:

1.  Anything with a swear word in it

2.  Lazy and selfish (the truth hurts)

3.  Bellatrix Lestrange

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My razor sharp wit

2. My incredible beauty

3. My blatant sarcasm

THREE THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My inability to function as a human being without the aid of coffee

2. How much I enjoy doing nothing

3. The shape of my right foot – is that a BUNION for the love of God??

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

1. Scottish

2. Irish

3. German, English, Russian, who really knows

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

1. The Ocean

2. Wild Animals

3. Severe Weather

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

1. Coffee

2. My computer

3. More coffee

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE COLORS

1. Dark Red

2. Medium Red

3. Light red

THREE THINGS YOU VALUE IN A RELATIONSHIP:

1. Laughter

2. Respect

3. Separate vacations

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):

1. I would like to go back to Scotland some day

2. I love African decor

3. I’d like to drown at sea

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:

1. Reading

2. Writing

3. Reading something else

THREE THINGS YOU HAVE WISHED FOR

1. Rain

2. World peace

3. To win the lottery

THREE CAREERS YOU HAVE CONSIDERED

1. Brain Surgeon

2. Rocket Scientist

3. Optician

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO:

1. Home

2. To sleep

3. To heaven

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:

1. Live

2. Make the world a better safer happier place

3. Make W.’s life hell. (oh – I thought we were still doing the truth/truth/lie thing 😉

Kenzie Says

Kenzie (age 10 and a half) (in the middle wearing shades) says writing a blog is probably easy if all you have to do is just answer lots of questions.  So I asked her lots of questions to see what she had to say.  All of these questions are taken from Kid Chat Too (Bret Nicholaus and Paul Laurie)

If you had to paint a message on the roof of your house that could be seen by anyone driving or walking by, what message would you paint there?

Kenzie Lives Here!  Chico Lives Here!  Sal and Johnny Live here!  And My Mom Too! (It’s a pretty big roof.)

Suppose that for one week, instead of saying ‘”hi” to someone you had to greet them with the sound of a farm animal.  What farm animal’s sound would you choose for your greeting?

MOOOOO!  And I’d wear my cow slippers.

For each of the four seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) what is your favourite sound?

In the spring I like the sound of the rain falling, and the sound of the birds chirping.  In summer I like the sounds of big thunderstorms.  In the fall, the best sound is kids yelling Trick or Treat!  And in the winter – HO HO HO!

If you had to do a job someday that required you to wear a uniform, what job would you want more than any other?

I would like to be an ambulance person, the one who goes in the back of the ambulance with the people who are hurt and takes care of them on the way to the hospital.  Or I could be a person who takes people on a tour, like a guide at a museum, and tells all about the history of something and explains everything, like telling people everything about the titanic and everything that happened.

What do you think will be the most difficult part of being an adult someday?

You have to drive everywhere, and go to a job, and pay all the bills.

If the door to your bedroom could be in any shape you wanted other than the standard rectangle, what shape would you choose for your door?

A circle, or a heart, or a very small square, or a diamond would be cool too.

If you could change your last name to something completely different from what it is now, what would you choose as your new last name?

I like my whole entire name just the way it is.  I’m going to be known as Kenzie my whole entire life.  I really like my name.  Your name kind of tells people who you are.

If a toothpaste company asked you to come up with an all-new flavor of toothpaste for kids, what flavor would you tell them to produce?

Something yummy like chocolate cake and ice cream.  But not exactly.  It would still have to taste like toothpaste or kids would just eat it.

If you could wake up tomorrow morning and be able to speak perfectly any language in the world, what language would you choose?

Chinese, because it sounds kinda cool.  Or maybe Irish or French.  That’s all I can think of right now.

Would you rather have school start earlier in the day and end earlier in the day, or start later in the day and end later in the day?  (In other words, would you rather sleep later in the mornings or come home earlier in the afternoons?)

I’d like to start school at seven o’clock and come home at one thirty!  Actually, I’d like to never go to school again and just stay home.  Because I hate math.  I’d rather have history all day long and learn everything about the titanic and there would be no such thing as math.

Which of the five senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch) do you think would be the hardest to live without?  Which do you think would be the easiest to live without?

It would be easiest to live without smells.  Because think of farting and burping.  Ewwww.  The hardest would be if you couldn’t see.  That would be really really hard.  If you’re blind you need to be good at hearing.  And if you’re deaf, you need to be good at seeing.

If you could permanently rid the world of any one type of insect or other creepy-crawly thing, which one would it be?

I have three.  Flies (I HATE flies, especially horse flies), wasps and hornets, and mosquitoes.  Oh wait, there’s four.  Also great big spiders.  Small and medium ones are okay.

If you could have in your backyard a statue of anything or anyone at all, what or whom would the statue represent?

I would have a big statue of the Titanic!  Or if that’s too big, it could be somebody from the titanic like Molly Brown, or Captain Smith, or Jack, or Bruce Ismay.

If your full name actually appeared in a dictionary, and the editors of that dictionary asked you to write a definition of who you are, what definition would you give yourself?

Kenzie is a very awesome polite girl who is interested in millions of things.  She has a wonderful family (refer to picture of cousins above).  She is happy that she is very thoughtful.  And she likes to eat the icing off the cupcake first.

(Sounds like a future blogger to me.)