Forgive the title, I like alliteration and I couldn’t come up with a single other title that felt right. This post is so totally not about the literary life. It is about how books, their plots and their characters, worm their way into our lives and the language of our family.
Do you know what I mean by that? Does your family talk in code phrases and secret language that other people can’t comprehend? Does that code and that language stem from having shared a book together? Let me share some of the most common examples of how this happens in the Flamingo Family.
"Traditionally Built Women". Do you know what that means? When was the last time you used the phrase? Have you ever used it? Alexander McCall Smith’s #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency has br
Insane? Naaaahh. Creative? Yup. When you said “house noises,” I intuitively got it, though I didn’t know the book reference (my ever-growing Amazon wish list is going to shut their server down, I swear – I just keep adding every time I hear about an interesting book).
Around here, it is not uncommon to utter at inappropriate but funny moments the phrases that David Sedaris flubbed in France while he was living with his boyfriend there (_Me Talk Pretty One Day_). Some favorites include: “Is thems the thoughts of cows?”; “Who shit on this carpet?”; and “I know the thing that you speak exact now.”
I visited a very interesting site, they have a vast collection of books which have been categories and are presented to viewers in an easy-to-search format. You should check it out.
http://www.khichdee.com/category-catid-11-paraid-0.htm