Willie Words

One of the perks of being completely smitten with words and language is that I somehow ended up married to a man who treats English like a polite suggestion rather than a rulebook. Willie doesn’t just use language—he auditions it, tweaks it, gives it a mullet and sunglasses, and sends it back into the world with a new name and a confident swagger.

Some of his inventions are slight variations on existing words. Take, for example, the humble “jacket.” Not in our house. No, we wear jacquets—that’s right, pronounced “zhack-wheat,” like a French fashion designer trying to say “windbreaker” with a mouthful of peanut butter. I had to make up the spelling, because even Willie admits he has no idea how to write it—he just knows how it feels. Our kids, naturally, adopted this without question, and now there are grown adults and unsuspecting airline personnel across the globe wondering why this nice Southern family keeps referring to their outerwear like they’re extras in a low-budget spy film.

But Willie’s linguistic innovations don’t stop at creative mispronunciation. No, sometimes the English language—and its international cousins—just aren’t up to the task. That’s when he dips into his own personal lexicon and pulls out a gem like “gubanji.” (Again, the spelling is approximated.) Pronunciation is, however, very specific: goo-BAHN-jee. Willie defines gubanji as “too much stuff that is currently useless but may one day be useful again.” You know, like a drawer full of twist-ties, mismatched Allen wrenches, and that one weird key no one can identify but everyone is afraid to throw away.

Used in context: “There’s so much gubanji on my workbench I can’t get to the drill.” Or: “The garage isn’t messy—it’s just heavily gubanjied.”

I used to correct him. I used to laugh. But now? I just grab my jacquet, step around the gubanji, and thank the stars I married a man who doesn’t just make a mess—he makes vocabulary. I can think of no greater gift than a partner who turns life’s chaos into a language all our own.