A few weeks ago, we discussed idiolects, the words and phrases you habitually use, and the favourite crutch-phrases and words that hold up the speech of those around us. You also have a familect. Or, more precisely, you take part in not just one familect but several.
As the name suggests, these are words, phrases and cultural references with meanings understood only within your family.
This is an odd example, but when I was a child how you ate might identify you as an “Alec”. My uncle Alec ate all the peas on his plate, then the carrots, then the potatoes, then the meat. If he had fish and chips, he ate the chips, then the fish. My brothers and I found this hilarious.
Accusing anyone else of being an Alec would be meaningless.
These things bind us together. You will have familects you share with workmates and groups of friends. You have different, and separate, familects shared with other sets of friends.
You might call the insect a forky-taily at home, but an earwig with friends. You might speak with a broader accent at home than at work, you might never utter the word “scubby” among one group of friends, but reference it easily and naturally in different company.
Your brain often doesn’t consciously register this. It is automatic. Indeed, reading this article, you probably can’t think of examples of your familect vocabulary. But give it a few days and you’ll say a word and it will occur to you that this isn’t a word you use in other areas of your life.
Almost certainly, you are more likely to use a swearword in front of some people but not others.
Within your familects there will be sub-sections. When speaking to my daughter, from time to time both of us will put on a Sybil Fawlty accent and say “Oooh, I know”. But I never do this when speaking to my son.
It goes as far as to cover names. I have a chum, George, who I address as “Left-Peg”. It stems from our footballing days when he was remarkably consistent with left-footed free-kicks. He put them all over the bar. Others call him Lefty, but only I use Left-peg. He calls me Dixie, for reasons neither of us can recall.
Though we openly call each other by these names and others overhear, they subconsciously recognise the rule that this is a personal familect and never take up either nickname.
Word of the week
Paraph (noun)
A flourish after a signature. EG. “Our family were all taught to use paraphs as a precaution against forged signatures.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
