Hoing: A word from about 1991, originally meaning, “Oh wow, our team almost scored a goal!” It was born during a local hockey game, when my friend and I would go to drool over the hockey players. Eventually, it evolved into a word meaning (roughly), “Oh my god, LOOK at that guy!”. It has since evolved into a verb (“I totally hoinged him” meaning I thought he was hot) or an adjective (“He’s a total hoing” meaning he’s beautiful) and various other grammatical terms. The easiest way to explain it is to say it’s the female equivalent to “Schwing!” Sadly, I think I may be the only person actually using it these days, although all of my friends (and my father, who calls it “hung”) know what it means. 
Flurgen: Also a word from about 1991. There’s no really good explanation about this, except to say that I was raised in a house where we were NOT allowed to swear. AT ALL. Not even “oh my God”. Try THAT out for a day. I think “flurgen” sort of grew out of the desire to say the “F-word”, but not being able to do so. Either way, it is a staple of my vocabulary.
Liokee: A word that evolved from high school, when my friend Shannon and I were learning Russian (our favourite hockey player was Russian… when we met him, I don’t think either of us could remember our NAMES, let alone English or Russian!). We both had a crush on a friend of her brother’s, and one day, Shannon called me over to her house, telling me that I HAD to see the girl that our crush-boy had brought over. She came to get me, and on the way over, we poured through our Russian/English dictionary, looking for the Russian equivalent of “slut” (which is what Shannon assured me this girl was). Oddly enough, I guess there are no sluts in Russia, so we had to try for another word to use for this girl, so we could talk about her in Russian, in front of her. “Easy” was the next word, and it came out sounding something like ‘liokee’, so hey presto – she had a name. Since then, ‘liokee’ was applied to pretty much every girl that dated someone we liked, or flipped her hair, or giggled profusely, or refused to acknowledge that she had a functional BRAIN. Then it became a joking insult between the two of us, as in, “Oh my flurgen, you’re totally liokee-ing all over that hoing!” We were nothing, if not inventive in high school.
The Stairs: There is a well-known and life-long conspiracy on the part of ALL stairs, everywhere, to kill me. I’m not joking. Every time I try to navigate stairs (from whole staircases to just a few steps), they try to kill me. They make me fall, trip, slip and generally bruise. Seriously! A list of injuries incurred on the stairs: fell down the stairs in the house I grew up in, resulting in the scar under my chin; fell down the same set of four stairs twice in two weeks, twisting both ankles; fell down the same stairs in the house I grew up in and broke my tailbone (you have NO idea how much or how LONG that hurts until you’ve done it); fell going up the stairs at work and bloodied my knee, in front of a super hot cop. Need I go on? Can you see the consipiracy? They’re out to get me! Save yourselves!
The Harpies: The women I work with. I liken them to your crazy maiden aunt Matilda, only with a propensity for vicious office gossip (and if the gossip’s not forthcoming, they’ll make it up) and a tendency to talk to/about their dogs like they’re children. In fact, the word “dog” in the previous sentence is interchangeable with the word “cat”, but I’m sure that’s no surprise.
Many people have been asking me just exactly what a harpy is – as in, where did the word come from. In all honesty, I’m a little surprised that this many people apparently slept through Greek mythology, but whatever. Maybe I’m the only freak that found that stuff fun (sigh). Either way, the definition is below. If you’re still confused, Wikipedia it.
Har·py [hahr-pee] –noun, plural -pies.
- Classical Mythology. A ravenous, filthy monster having a woman’s head and a bird’s body.
- (lowercase) a scolding, nagging, bad-tempered woman; shrew.
- (lowercase) a greedy, predatory person.
