I'm Most Definitely a "Serrated Knife Person" ;-)

Edited to add: I just republished the post with the correct date and added one more expression.

Sarah, just wrote a great guest post at Dooce titled "La Vie en Janice" in which she describes what the name/expression "Janice" means to her and her friend Anne. Fun post!

Then, at the end of her post she linked to this great essay about The Language of a Marriage in which the "serrated knife people" expression appears. I thought the essay was great and I definitely have several such phrases with my husband. Most importantly, we have several "language of a family" expressions too, most derived by funny things my father-in-law has said.* These phrases are used by my husband, his brothers, some cousins, the daughters-in-law and now the grandsons (we've been teaching the first one below to our boys since they were babies).

What I thought was hilarious though, is that I really only use serrated knives and I don't care if I may be considered an inferior kind of cook because of that!! I buy my knives in Brazil and when they get dull I just get a newer one to use. You should see how fast I can chop tomatoes or mince onions. I love my serrated knives!

Well, at least I'm not a Janice! ;-)

* The most important ones just for the record:

(1) "Fala meu primo!!" ["Speak my cousin!"] -- We say it in English on occasion as a joke. This refers to the way my FIL's greets his dear second cousin Vanja.

(2) "Bah, querida!" [Bah, dear!] -- this exasperated expression comes from the last day of the 1993 U.S. trip when FIL, MIL, K and his brothers were stuck in a traffic jam in Miami Beach. FIL had been telling MIL to please calm down (she thought they were going to miss the flight), but then he caught on and got exasperated too. This obviously doesn't make any sense for those who weren't there since it's such a common expression. It's the intonation that does the trick. BTW, I wasn't there to hear this.

(3) "Um dia que bonito para a prática do esporte!" [What a beautiful day to practice sports!]

(4) "Morreu?" "Morreu." "Ah bom!!" ["He died?" Died." "Ah, good!"] This one has a funny story behind which I witnessed first hand. FIL's youngest sister-in-law was telling a story about a construction worker who had fallen flat from scaffolding up above and FIL wasn't sure if the guy had died or not, but the way he reacted, was hilarious. He obviously said "good" because he now knew for sure what had happened, but it sounded comical, as if the guy's death were a "good" thing.

(5) "Até que o coração PAAAARE de bater!" ["Until the heart STOOOPS beating"] - at a wedding, while saying the vows, FIL exaggerated in the "stop" and we couldn't stop laughing for a long time and saying it to each other later.