My TV remote has been a clickie switchie since about noon today, and honestly it’s working better. Things named like walkie talkies make sense in a way the dictionary never has: you say the name, the name tells you what the thing does, and it rhymes, which is a bonus I was not expecting from language. Walkie talkie is the gold standard. You walk, you talk, and nobody needed a meeting about it. I went through the whole list below and I have questions, but mostly I have joy.
The lingerie department just got a lot more awkward.
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Correct, but please don't say it at the mall.
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Name tags now say meetie greetie, and I'm going home.
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Thomas Edison is rolling his eyes and nodding at the same time.
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This one should have gone to a second meeting.
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Reading it for the articles, clearly.
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Tangled in a drawer since 2011.
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Thumper deserves royalties.
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Prom night, but make it rhyme.
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Menacing and correct.
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Thomas Jefferson did not agree to this.
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Better branding than most ad agencies.
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Darth Vader would absolutely use this name at home.
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Honestly, I'm switching.
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Grandma has called them this for years.
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Cereal is offended.
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Lefty loosies sold separately.
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Easier to yell in an emergency.
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Nobody needed a rhyme for this, and yet.
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Somewhere a pharma marketing team is taking notes.
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Two minutes forty, same as always.
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Hair you can take off at dinner.
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The most honest name on the list.
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Things named like walkie talkies
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The kitchen ones are my favorite, because they’re so honest. A spoon is a soupie scoopie, a microwave is a heatie eatie, and a fork is a stabbie grabbie, which sounds violent, but that’s on the fork, not me. Funny names for things work best when the name is also a small warning. I would read a cookbook written entirely like this, and I would finally follow the recipe.
Some of these sound like baby talk words, and that’s exactly what makes the serious ones land. A defibrillator becoming a heartie startie should be ridiculous, but in an emergency I’d rather yell heartie startie than try to spell the real thing. Pregnancy tests became maybe babies, which is the most accurate description of that little stick ever printed. My doctor won’t use either one. I asked twice.
Then the list wanders into the bathroom and the bedroom, like every conversation eventually does. Rhyming words have a way of making anything sound friendly, even the stuff you’d whisper at a pharmacy counter. I’m not repeating those here, but the one from the pharmacy’s back shelf has better branding than most ad agencies. I’d buy it. I’d be embarrassed, but I’d buy it.
I think this kind of naming feels so good because it’s how we all talked before anybody corrected us. Kids name things by what they do and how they sound, and it works perfectly until school shows up with Latin. Walkie talkie survived that process somehow, like the one kid who never had to take off the Halloween costume. Every name on this list is a tiny rebellion against sounding smart.
Also, these are just fun to say out loud, which is rarer than it should be. I’ve spent all afternoon calling my ceiling fan a spinnie windie and I feel like a genius. Language should be a little bit of a toy. We’d all be happier if more of it rhymed, and we’d definitely be faster at finding the lightie brighties when the power goes out.
You walk. You talk. You’re welcome.
If your brain is still renaming the furniture, our punny memes are the next logical stop, and the shower thoughts will make you question every word you’ve ever said out loud. We also keep a steady supply of dad jokes and a pile of cliche sayings taken literally, for anyone who likes their language slightly bent. Go on. Call your fridge a coldie holdie.
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