A Sniglet is Born

Car ride convo with Natalie:

Natalie: "Mom, how do I grow a tail?"

Me: "Honey, you can’t grow a tail.  God didn’t make humans to have a tail."

Natalie: "But mommy, if I met a fairy and she granted me a wish then I could wish for a tail."

Me: "I didn't know fairies granted wishes?"

Natalie: "Yes, then I would live at the beach."

Me: "But I’d miss you."

Natalie: "I’d try all kinds of new foods... like coral stew!"

Me: "What else would you eat?"

Natalie: "Seaweed pudding!...and roasted shark!...And, my tail would be purple...and my hair would be purple and I'd wear a purple crown!...and all the mermaids would have a pet.  I would have a pet stingray."

Me: "What would you call your pet stingray?"

Natalie: "I would name her Sparkles and she would be pink.  Actually, I’d call her Sparkle Pink…no Parkle Pink."

Me: "Parkle?  That's not even a word."

Natalie: "Yes it is.  It’s a secret mermaid word…it’s a private word."

Me: "What does it mean?"

Natalie: "It means something that is very, very special."

Natalie's newly coined term makes me think of comedian Rich Hall.  In the 80's he introduced us to his own collection of sniglets through a segment called, "Not Necessarily the News."  A sniglet is any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.  Hall went on to create several volumes of books containing collected sniglets.

As a kid, my cousin Molly and I loved, much to our parents chagrin, to enlighten them to sniglets we learned through the late night show and also new ones we created ourselves. Our favorite sniglet word by far was fod; which at the time referred to couples at amusement parks who wore identical T-shirts (presumably to prevent from getting lost). Since Molly and I were Six Flags pass holders - we saw a lot of them. We made a game out of it much like Slug Bug.  Good times!

Below is a sniglet segment from 1983.