onomatopoeia

Totally had to look up the spelling of that word. But you know what it is, right? A word that sounds like what it is (like squeak or drip). I was listening to a program on NPR on the way home about language and how new words are invented. The speaker said that sometimes there is a hole for a word (like what do you call the decade we are currently in?) and there just isn't a word in use yet. Or sometimes a word just catches on and fills a hole in the language, like spam for junk e-mail.

Anyway, it reminded me that I have a word that I think should catch on.

"Bink"

As in, "will you bink the car for me?" or, "do you have the binker for the car?" 

A binker (n) is the device that has a button to push to unlock your car doors. To bink (v) is to use that device to unlock the car doors.

I've been using this term for several years and frequently forget that only Mr. H knows what I'm talking about.  And now there's the confusion that the word sounds like binky so I have to be more careful.

Does anyone have an alternative word for this device? Anyone have any other words they've made up and put into use?

Finally, since we need a photo here, an action shot of the shirts I screenprinted today. Hopefully I'll get better photos tomorrow.

Comments

[Swistle]

Cute shirts!

In our house, we tend to adopt our children's words for things. We say video "viv-ee-you," we call clothespins "close-nips"---but I can't think of any words we've invented for things that don't have words.

The first decade thing is a REAL PROBLEM. And what about the second decade? We can say "the tens," but will that sound right? I'm eager for the twenties.

[Mary]

I call the car opener device a click-click. As in "Hey, click-click and let me in, it's freezing!" I think i call it that because on our car, it doesn't beep when you unlock it, you just hear the locks clicking open.

[Molly]

Swistle, we do the same thing! We have vid-did-ohs and air con-did-tioner and scry-doover(screwdriver).

Since we have older cars(our suburban is going on 18 years) that require actual keys to unlock them, I'm not a big help. We do have a button on one of them that opens the truck, we ask someone to "pop" the trunk. The suburban requires us to carry around the button that opens the door, it came off in my hands one night. So, we have to make sure we have the "popper" when we head out in that beast.

Molly