Verboticism: Humumbug

'Eat! Or you'll turn into a boneless chicken.'

DEFINITION: n., Cautionary advice provided by parents to their children, often makes no logical sense but carries enough emotional weight to affect the child's behavior. v. To warn of danger through the judicious use of exaggeration.

Create | Read

Voted For: Humumbug

Successfully added your vote for "Humumbug".

You still have one vote left...

Limabeanery

Created by: idavecook

Pronunciation: Just eat it kid.

Sentence: My mom's limabeanery had become so overwhelming that I had to move out of the ouse because I ran with the flippin' scissors.

Etymology: Lima Beans + Your Mom + My irrational fear

| Comments and Points

Bullfear

Created by: staggolee

Pronunciation: BULL-Fear

Sentence: Grandma's bullfear haunted the child's imaginings for the rest of his life.

Etymology:

| Comments and Points

Awedition

Created by: Stevenson0

Pronunciation: aw/dish/un

Sentence: Parents awedition their children because it is a fast, easy way to get the behaviour they expect. Unfortunately, when children are put through too many aweditions and are older, they do not trust anything their parents tell them.

Etymology: awe (fear)+ condition

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

sounds like something a teacher might do - Jabberwocky, 2007-09-28: 11:59:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Whopperstopper

Created by: kerryb

Pronunciation: wopur stopur

Sentence: My parents never failed to verbalize any number of whopperstoppers in order to curb my ongoing misbehavior.

Etymology: whopper: A ridiculous and ostentatiously bodacious lie or misnomer that would violate the bounds of belief beyond any child older than 5! stopper: A metaphorical line in the sand that is designed to cease unwanted action or behavior.

| Comments and Points

Causham

Created by: Rehlit

Pronunciation: kaw-sham

Sentence: Many parents use an insidious causham to frighten their naughty children. Such as "If you eat watermelon seeds, a watermelon will grow in your stomach!"

Etymology: Caution(a warning against danger or evil; anything serving as a warning) + sham (something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax; pretended; counterfeit; feigned:)

| Comments and Points

Yolklaw

Created by: wordslikevenom

Pronunciation: Yolk-law

Sentence: "Cluck, cluck, cluck", mother was laying down the yolklaw yet again.

Etymology: Yolk - middle part of an egg. Law - a rule or the whole system of such rules.

| Comments and Points

Badmonition

Created by: Mustang

Pronunciation: bad-mo-ni-shun

Sentence: Know for her dark predictions, Grandma offered another of her badmonitions when she told us that eating too much candy would stunt our growth.

Etymology: bad + admonition

| Comments and Points

Scarefication

artr

Created by: artr

Pronunciation: skair-uh-fi-key-shuhn

Sentence: Mother hen believes in the use of scarefication to keep her chicks in line. A little lie here, an exaggeration there, all pecked into their little psyches until they are afraid to do anything wrong.

Etymology: scare (to fill, especially suddenly, with fear or terror; frighten; alarm) Scarification (scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification)

| Comments and Points

Hegglestion

Created by: frenchprof

Pronunciation:

Sentence: Hegglestion noted, the philosopher cracked up.

Etymology: comes from Hegel a famous philosopher.

| Comments and Points

Madvice

Created by: lumina

Pronunciation: mad/vice

Sentence: Yeah he was at it again. Dad, flappin' his chops about how he "had to walk a mile to school in the snow," "shine shoes for lunch money" and "wear grandpa's suit jacket to his 8th grade graduation." Patrick learned to tune both Dad AND Mom out the day he realized they were offering nothing but useless madvice once they started digging into their, "WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE" files.

Etymology: mad + advice. Parents short fuse when it comes to their "spoiled brats" whining...

----------------------------
COMMENTS:

Amen...but of course we do the same things to our own kids...When I was in school, talk about computers was pure science fiction...why they had barely invented tv's or phones that weren't party lines! Cheers,lumina - Nosila, 2008-08-29: 20:08:00

----------------------------

| Comments and Points

Show All or More...