Tell Me Nice Things, or The Fictionary

I once had a very nice boyfriend. He used to sing me songs, come home with gifts of orchids or bonsais, cook lovely mussels. And because I was a nervous teenager with a very busy imagination, he used to put me to sleep with stories. 'Tell me nice things...' was my nightly catchcry when the darkness descended and the monsters started to shuffle. 'Tell me nice things' I would implore, and he would fill the room with narrative sunshine. He would recount his travels as a child, having the mixed blessing of an ex-pat father and a life on the road. Tales of swimming with coral in the Red Sea, preparing the Easter feast in Denmark, his grandpa shooting zebras in Kwa-Zulu Natal, school in Jakarta. He would conjure the smell of Swedish Christmas trees, the taste of lobster in Maine, the thrill of entering a Saudi home with his mother to see the women behind the burqas, dripping in gold and gossip.

So for our second anniversary as a gift and a thankyou for the years of lullabies, I made him a little book entitled Tell Me Nice Things. In it, I lovingly catalogued our favourite words and characters, not just from the stories, but from our story. It was basically a dictionary of us, a collection of our private jokes and invented lexicon. It was illustrated and in alphabetical order.

It is almost a decade later and my husband (who is not in fact the boyfriend) tells me nice things. Only this time, it's not just me in the bed, but also our two year-old. The stories feature our travels, our jokes, our heroes and villains, and of course, our invented words. And the three of us cling to our invented language as though it were a security blanket, lying in the dark with foreign sirens and sambas blaring down below, the silhouttes of travel spirits swirling above us. Our langauge is what developmental psychologists call a 'transitional object'.

My husband and I have an old love of words and their capacity to do, well, pretty much anything. Three weeks after our first date we invented a name for our car, crafted several nicknames for each other and fashioned an imaginary contraption called The Louge which linked our neighbouring houses via a magic superfast tunnel. We went on to invent alternative names for things in our life: Lady Deathtrap was the ute we sometimes drove, The Crypt was our tiny apartment and of course The Goose, Stinky Pingu, Nusus, Bruno and The Tyrant -- our son.

Travelling to so many countries where the language is not our own, we seem to have developed an even greater need for this meta-langauge. Not just because it helps to pass the time, or even because it provides a continuous, protective barrier between our little family and the ever-changing environs. But because in a confusing and sometimes terrifying world it helps us to embrace the chaos.

It helps us to connect to each other and it helps us to connect the dots.

For instance, when we are hungry, tired and generally agitated, a fight may be provoked. There is nothing to actually fight about, but steam must be let off. This is called a Gilbert and we use it as a kind of 'safe word' to bring the provocateur back down to earth. (As in 'hey man, you do not need to pack your bags and take the next plane home. This is just a Gilbert. Have a samosa, you'll see...').

We have long been travelling with a puppy called Labradog who takes possession of our bodies when we meet someone exciting and wonderful. It is not uncommon for us to cross-reference with each other after meeting someone really cool 'did I totally Labradog that French couple?'; in other words, 'was I too keen? Did I get too friendly too soon? Was the offer of our couch premature? The promise of eternal friendship too hasty?' (The irony is that while we are insecure about this, we love Labradogs ourselves and welcome them!)

As a side hobby, we collect beautiful and intriguing words. Brazilian Portuguese is awash with them, just as Brazil itself is awash with beauty and intrigue. First there are the names of fruit -- maracuja, mamão, morango, amora, avela, abacaxi, melancia. Then there are the exclamations, of which our favourite is 'nossa!', short for Nossa Senhora, or Our Lady. Our current obsession is with beijaflor, which means hummingbird, because the creature obtains food from a 'beijo' (kiss) with a 'flor'(flower). Yum.

Below is a small extract from our Fictionary. I can not reveal too much more, as much of the language is private. Not because it's lude or offensive, or even that personal. But because it is emotional and idiosyncratic in that way that Family Things are. And while we are ready to call this world our family for the purposes of travel, we are not quite ready to take it bed and switch off the lights.

With love, a few of our words:

Johnny: verb; to Johnny something is to allow a person to complete most of a task (usually a chore) and then to come in at the last minute with advice and suggestions on how it might be done better. Abbreviation of Johnny Come Lately.
Ariel Purchase: noun; a hasty purchase of a large and expensive good or service (such as a car or an airline ticket), usually done with no research or preparation and resulting in a disasterous loss of money, and motivated solely by the desire to just 'get it done' .
Harden the Fuck Up: verb, imperative form. This delicate phrase actually belongs to Chopper Read. It is an instruction to stop deliberating, prevaricating, whingeing and generally not doing what you should.
Polly: adjective. Used to describe a person or way of behaving that is passive agressive, sometimes manipulative or just plain solitary and loving it. Derives from Pagliacci, the Italian opera about a sociopathic clown who is crying on the inside. Credits to our dear Barnaby, who hopefully still uses it as much as we do.
Taking Out the Meat: verb; refusing to go out because you have already settled in for a night at home. Credit to our dear Eliot Goldstone who is pathologically incapable of leaving the house once he has taken out a piece of meat to defrost for dinner.
Spiritual Vertigo: noun; the zoom you feel as your body slowly climbs the steps to a holy edifice and your spirit calls a quick retreat to get some perspective on life.

Big thanks to the gorgeous and wordy Londi Gamedze who introduced us to the word Fictionary.
And finally, we would love y'all to write to us with your invented words so that we can add them to this page.