Fun Fact: My moms "grandma name" is Nani.
She is called Nani because when Lilo and Stitch first came out, a very young nephew was obsessed with the film. Little man didn't do a lot of talking, but he took one look at my mother (who is pear-shaped and bottom heavy in the best way) and shouted "Nani!"
Moms a sucker for a cute kid who is excited to see her, so the label stuck. She's been Nani for 20 years.
My dad LIVES for the moment when people ask why and he gets to talk about her butt - something he will honestly take any available opportunity to do. They've been together for 40 years and are still completely gross for each other and if my marriage ain't like that, then I don't want it.
Reddit user No-Hippo1283 asked:
"Parents of Reddit, what phrases do you still use that your kids 'invented' when they were young?"
Little kids inventing phrases and names for things and having the family just run with it is one of the best parts of having kids in the family!
Grandparent titles are just one way kids enrich the lexicon, but let's go ahead and start there since it's one of the most common.
What Do You Call Yours?
Abuelo Old Man GIF by CucoGiphy"Grandpa in Spanish is 'Abuelo' but my kid would always call my dad 'Olo.' "
"Thus we never refer to him as abuelo, only 'olo.' "
- ThatReaperGuy
"My mother would always greet my niece by saying 'Hello Darling.' "
"My niece couldn't pronounce darling, so she would reply to her 'Hello Wahwee' and then it sort of stuck. Now instead of Granny my mum gets 'Wahwee' by all the grandkids."
- _corbae_
"My grandpa has been 'Bumpa' for 20 years because one of my cousins couldn't pronounce grandpa right when he was like 3."
- 00zau
Drowsy
"My uncle says 'drowsy trousers' instead of 'pajama pants' because my little cousin was playing with rhymes and near-rhymes and came up with that phrase."
"He and I agree it sounds cooler."
- DBSeamZ
"Drowsy trousies 😉"
- beauxbeaux
A Moral Victory
Breakfast Burrito Cooking GIF by 60 Second DocsGiphy"All of my relatives refer to breakfast burritos as ‘eggy weggy tacos’ which is a moral victory for four-year-old me."
- Cw2e
"Same kind of thing here."
"A fried egg on a bagel in any form is an 'eggel bagel' and French toast with syrup is 'sticky froast' while the same with powdered sugar is 'poofy froast.' "
"So on Saturday morning a perfectly normal thing to say is 'do you want your froast sticky or poofy?' "
- Alt_aholic
"Reminds me of 'peeber meeshmof' in my family."
"When I met my wife I asked if she's ever had a 'peeber meeshmof' and she's like 'wtf??' "
"I realized then that 'peeber meeshmof' might not actually be the name of the amazing sandwich I love. So I called my mom."
"She says one of us, she can't remember who, said 'peeber meeshmof' instead of 'peanut butter and marshmallow fluff' and it stuck. Now that's just what we call them."
- Nokomis34
Some Foreign Country
"My young son tried to ask my dad for an English muffin, but couldn’t remember what they were called. He knew it was something about another country or foreign or whatever."
"So he called them 'China Buns.' "
"We still call them that today and he’s 18."
- Chairish
Tea Time
thrive love & hip hop GIF by Robert E BlackmonGiphy"My son, when he was little, commented that 'bathwater is just butt tea.' "
" 'Making butt tea' has meant taking a bath ever since."
- Dragoness42
"And I'm never going to take a bath again."
- Stoghra
Wanting A Poon
"I’m the child not the parent, but when I was learning to talk I used to say 'poon' instead of 'spoon.' My parents still use it to this day, saying sh*t like 'hand me a poon' or 'you want a poon for that?' "
"It never fails to make me uncomfortable because I know what 'poon' means these days but I’m not actually sure my parents do. & I’m not willing to correct them."
"They would absolutely mess with me about it if they realized, but they would be way more in my face about it if it they were actually doing it on purpose. Plus a family friend has made a joke about it & they just didn’t engage which they absolutely would have if they knew."
"They still joke about how I offered to help & 'cut the cheese' for a party when I was in elementary school, they are very obvious when they are messing with me, absolutely no subtlety."
"I really wish they knew & were f*cking with me so they would stop saying it around people that aren’t really close with us & probably think we’re all weird perverts when they hear it lmao"
"Plus, little do they know, I’m bisexual & do indeed want a poon."
- regular-kahuna
"My Nana asked the lovely young waitress at a cafe for 'a little poon please.' My husband and I nearly died laughing."
- LiquorishSunfish
Focus
"My brother was just learning how to sound out words and start to read. We were sitting in a McDonald’s eating when my dad points to a word up on the wall, and tells him to try and read it."
"He stared intently at it and slowly pronounced 'mac…nug…get!' "
"He was so focused, that he didn’t notice that he had tipped the little cup of ketchup he was holding and it had spilled all over his lap. So from then on, whenever anyone spilled food on their laps we say they 'pulled a McNugget.' ”
- WankSpanksoff
How You Become Jewish
K-Pop Daydream GIF by PENTAGONGiphy"When my son was in third grade near the Christmas holiday his teacher approached my wife (who volunteered at his school part time) and asked if we were Jewish."
"She replied no & was told that our son thought we were. When questioning my son why he told his teacher we were Jewish he said he wasn't paying attention when the teacher was going through the different religions asking the kids to raise their hands."
"So by the time he realized what was going on the only thing left was Jewish."
"Now our favorite saying anytime someone is not paying attention is 'That is how you become Jewish.' "
"His answer wouldn't have mattered anyway; he was raised Lutheran but we are not very religious."
- Driverwanted
Made Of Windows
"My son could never remember 'transparent' or 'see-through' so he called anything clear 'made of windows.' ”
"He wanted to put his puzzles in the box made of windows (Tupperware container), and wanted to drink out of the clear cup made from windows."
- sixthandelm
Let's Go The Other Way
"Going the opposite way, I sometimes use words my first-generation immigrant parents invented."
" 'Defrog' is what the button on the car dashboard with the wavy red lines does (defrost/thaw/de-fog?). And we sometimes got 'Kentucky Fried Kitchen.' "
- coilycat
"Haha, I do this with my immigrant parents too."
"My mom for some reason has trouble with the letter S at the beginning of words, and we still call smoothies 'moothies' to this day to poke fun at her."
- gentlemako
"I love this!"
"We do similar things in my house, since my husband is also an immigrant and non-native English speaker; he speaks 99.99% perfect, fluent English, but once in a while he'll just substitute the complete wrong word."
"My favorite was the time a jacked-up pickup truck passed us on the highway and he commented on its 'ridiculous suspenders' and it took me about 30 seconds to realize he meant suspension."
"But now all jacked-up trucks are 'suspender trucks,' obviously."
"He's also been known to accidentally switch languages when he's tired. I was beyond confused when he told me I'd look pretty with 'lint' in my hair."
"It took several minutes of synonym-charades to put together that he'd accidentally used the Afrikaans word (lint) rather than the English word (ribbon)."
"Cue recurring jokes about how we'd better save the dryer lint for wrapping Christmas presents, since it's so pretty."
- int3gr4te
Alright, now that you've gotten all of Reddits linguistic adorableness, it's your turn to share.
What words or phrases in your world exist thanks to kids?
Let's get our learn on, shall we?
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Those who work in different fields all have their respective anecdotes that are sure to keep listeners engaged.
But certain jobs that keep employees away from land are sure to have the most intriguing stories to share.
Seafarers shared their unique experiences bordering on hair-raising phenomena when Redditor tylo144 asked:
"For those who have careers that keep them out at sea for long periods of time, what is the creepiest thing you’ve seen out in the water?"
Mariners shared their wildest stories from their time out at sea.
Fierce Gale
"Not so much what I saw but what I experienced. I was once underway in the Gulf of Alaska during a November gale. Waves were up to 35 feet with some rollers hitting 45. An uncommon occurrence on the diesel electric ship I was on was a cyclo-converter tripping. When this happened the ship would temporarily completely lose power and propulsion until some electricians could reset everything. This happened during that gale. I simply can’t explain how strange it is for the boat you’re on to all of a sudden go so quiet, that you can clearly hear waves slapping the ship and metal bending and flexing. Knowing you’re completely at the mercy of the sea. Knowing that if the ship lost its bearing and went beam to there was a real possibility of capsizing. It’s easy to forget when you’re at sea that the only thing keeping you alive is a bunch of steel welded together. At that moment I was fully aware and it humbled me. Thankfully we trained frequently for this and had everything fired back up relatively quickly."
"Another time I recall was when the ship took a rogue wave. They are absolutely real and I believe they account for a massive number of shipwrecks. It was late at night and I was on the bridge. We were passing through a storm and we’re taking the waves off the bow with no visibility. As the ship moves there’s normally a pretty standard pattern. You ride up a wave for a bit and then you fall down the wave for a bit. Well we started riding up a wave and got to the point where we should have been starting or ride down…but we just kept climbing and climbing. And then it happened. We started our ride down the back of this massive wave. All of us braced ourselves and tried to find something to hold on to but we all fell to the deck any way. Anything that wasn’t secured for sea fell down all around us. Manuals, tables, computers, printers, you name it. Our captain who was sleeping called up to the bridge asking if we hit something. It woke the entire crew up. Rogue waves are real, and they’re terrifying. I can’t imagine being in a smaller boat or taking one of them broadside."
– red_pimp69
Series Of Bizarre Events
"I was in the US Navy for about 10 years, and have 10s of thousands of miles at sea in an aircraft carrier. Countless nights on the flight deck in the middle of the night and middle of the ocean..."
"Creepiest: A HUGE patch of the ocean glowing. Like nuclear waste in the Simpsons glowing. I've seen bioluminescent algae of a few kinds and this was nothing like it. I've never seen anything like it before or since."
"Weirdest thing: hundreds of mile out to sea from land and there was a MASSIVE fire on the water. It was like the top of a gas refinery, but on the water with nothing under it but water. Flame going a few stories into the air."
"Funniest: 2 flying fish collide mid-air. I was smoking when we were in the Persian Gulf and saw the fish fly from a pretty far distance towards each other. I remember thinking 'there's no f'kin way they're going to hit' them SPLAT SPLASH! I was in tears laughing but no one saw it. Everyone just thought I was a weirdo, but I got to see a miracle of nature lol"
– BBQQA
Lone Yacht
"Some 20 years ago..."
"On the MV Explorer (since sunk) down near the Antarctic circle, sailing around the 'bergs and occasionally making landfall..."
"We rounded into a small bay area, and there, amongst the ice and coast was an unmarked sailing yacht. Which is odd as generally yachts have some identifying markings on them."
"To add to it, they didn't respond to any radio contact, and whilst I wasn't privy to the conversation (and it was a long time ago), some crew went across via Zodiac and were refused boarding."
"So basically a yacht, not a particularly large one, that was unmarked was hanging around in the inhospitable waters of the Antarctic and didn't want any help or contact."
"Proper weird."
– ThanklessTask
These Redditors have fearlessly plunged into darkness.
Dark Dive
"I used to be an oilfield diver in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd say about 80% of the dives I logged were at night. Mostly 500 ft and under DSV's."
"It's very eerie feeling sitting on the downline doing in water decompression in the middle of night. I'd always ask topside to turn off my headlight."
"Like a worm on a hook. Just bobbing in the darkness."
– Comrade_Fuzzybottoms
A Dark Calm
"Not even nearly as extreme as your story but it evoked a memory, I did a scuba diving open water course and then did the advanced course which included a night dive in a freshwater lake."
"I was only 5m underwater, pitch black darkness with two other guys, we were on a platform and we could either face the dam wall or the open water, and I turned to the open water while the other guys were behind me, I turned off my light (we did have little lights on our backs)"
"Just the deepest, calmest dark I’ve ever felt and seen. Not a single source of light anywhere, just immense darkness. Still remember that feeling and it was like 15 years ago"
– circleinsidecircle
Things get more interesting.
Water Glow
"The bioluminescent animals (or whatever they are) in the water is pretty amazing. Our toilet would fill up with seawater and if you took a piss in it in the middle of the night it would agitate the water and it would glow sometimes."
– Tub-a-guts
"Ominous Red Snow Angel"
"Always love the bio-luminescence flickering around the hull at night. They're almost like a cushion of little stars guiding you safely along. On those really dark, moonless nights, I'd almost beg for them to arrive."
"I sailed 70ft yacht around the world a few years back. Southern Ocean, Cape Horn, Good Hope, Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, two equatorial crossings; the full deal. Plenty of terrifying moments, boring moments, funny moments and beautiful moments."
"A creepy moment that is burned into my memory involved a near catastrophe halfway between NZ and Cape Horn. We ended up hitting really bad weather and absolutely huge seas - 50ft swells with massive troughs in between. We were running with the swells for days as they grew, skidding down them like a bloated surfboard, always worrying that the next wave would break behind us and roll us over."
"At night it's pitch black down there in bad weather - the sky and sea just form a huge black mass. The most terrifying thing is the sound of an invisible wave breaking behind you. At night, you run red light to preserve night vision, so there's basically just an eerie red glow emanating from below deck."
"At about two in the morning, I was at the helm when a monster wave broke directly over the back of us without a seconds warning. Time slowed down like it does in those moments, and the last thing I saw was my own silhouette in the wall of water, lit up like an ominous red snow angel - and then nothing but cold blackness as the boat sunk into the sea."
"Fortunately, she popped straight back up like a cork after a few eternal seconds - almost like a submarine surfacing - and we were still in one piece. Still cant forget that glowing red apparition of myself though. The memory of it has woken me up in a cold sweat more than once."
– Le_Rat_Mort
Coming Up For Air
"Somewhere in the Atlantic, nice cold as f**k night, decided to step out and look at stars. About ten minutes on and a boats mast pops up, sits there a few minutes and then back under. No alarms, nothing. Just some sub boys getting a bit of late night o2 in the middle of nowhere next to some friends."
– MyMomsSecondSon
When I worked on cruise ships, I was always captivated by the green flash on the horizon.
The optical phenomenon occurs just as the sun goes down or before sunrise, with the tip of the sun barely visible.
It emits a flash of green light that I found absolutely thrilling to witness every time.
It's not necessarily creepy, but still a wonder for sure.
No matter how long ago we saw it, there are some scenes or images from movies that still send shivers down our spine or keep us awake at night to this very day.
Pennywise appearing in the sewer in It, Janet Leigh surprised in the shower in Psycho, Freddy Kreuger's tongue popping out of the telephone in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Of course, some of the scariest, most disturbing, or most emotionally traumatizing scenes from films might have been featured in films outside of the horror genre.
Even more shockingly, some of these films were primarily marketed towards children!
Redditor alina_love was curious to hear which non-horror films the Reddit community saw as children still send shivers down their spines today, leading them to ask:
"What's a non horror movie that traumatized you as a kid?"
It Was Tim Burton, After All...
"'Pee Wee's big adventure'."
"Large Marge scared the crap out of little me."
"I was even scared of the fortune teller."- BlueStarrSilver·
With A Title Like "Temple Of Doom"...
"'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'."
"The scene where the guy gets his heart ripped out traumatized me for years."- Pbhf
That Funeral Scene Though...
"'My Girl'."
"Fear of death, fear of losing a friend, fear of bees, fear of puberty."- heidismiles
macaulay culkin kiss GIFGiphyJurassic Park's Got Nothing On This...
"'The Land Before Time'."
"Watching Little Foot’s mother die was awful."- HourglassSass
He'll Always Regret Not Bringing Her To The Museum...
"'Bridge to Terabithia'."- jumpstart-the-end
"Everything goes so well and it falls apart SO FAST and your left absolutely traumatized."- VortexDestroyer99
The Reason People Hold On To Their Appliances For As Long As They Do...
"The Brave Little Toaster'."- Catgurl
"The junkyard scene alone was responsible for so many nightmares."- ManChildMusician
brave little toaster animation GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphyAnd Let's Not Forget The Coachman's Smile...
"Disney’s version of 'Pinocchio'."
"The scene where kids are turned into donkeys and kept on the island and then resold was f*cking weird."
"You felt bad for that bully kid after he looked sad and nobody understood what he said because he was a donkey."- earnestlikehemingway
Few Things More Sad And Scary Than Deforestation
"'Ferngully: The Last Rainforest'."
"That evil tree scared me so bad."- slutsdotnet
Anything But "Truly Scrumptious"...
"The 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' Childcatcher guy!"
"I'm still scared of him!"- Jet_Maypen
child GIFGiphyOffing Children One By One...In A Children's Movie!
"'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' boat scene."
"Honorable mention of claustrophobia when Augustus gets stuck in the chocolate tube."
"UGH!"- looseseal-bluth
At Least We Know He Had A "Sole"...
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
"That poor shoe….."- dalalice5555
At Least The Song Is Catchy...
"Neverending Story."
"Not even Artax, which was awful, but the Rockbiter and his good strong hands."- marxychick1
Neverending Story 80S GIFGiphyDorothy Gettying Electro Shock Therapy Says it All...
"Return to Oz."- Jeff_Steelflexx
"Horrifying! What about the animated wig heads?"- weensfordayz
The Reigning King Of Childhood Trauma
"Old Yeller."- IceTech59
"I remember watching this on TV during, I think, Wonderful World of Disney (Sunday nights were Disney night on TV)."
"Cried and cried and cried."
"I've never been able to watch it again and I've never shown it to my kids!"- crowwitch
Not All Friendships Are Tenable... A Terrifying Thought
"'The Fox and the Hound'."
"Still makes me incredibly sad, lol."- mental_reincarnation
best friends friendship GIFGiphySometimes, writers and filmmakers simply overestimate what might go over a child's head.
Or, for that matter, they might underestimate their emotional capacity.
Regardless, ask any of Fairuza Balk's fans which is scarier, Return to Oz or The Craft, and their answer will be immediate...
(... and it won't be The Craft...)