2012.04.13 Gawlph

Simon got some kind of stomach bug, and our first indication of it was when he threw up in bed. Vomited. Barfed. Puked.

Except Simon didn't know any of those words, because this was his first experience with regurgitation as a semi-sentient language-using being. So he extemporaneously created a piece of onomatopoeia that was perfectly descriptive and instantly understandable. "I gawlphed." He looked down on his soiled blanket. "There's gawlph on it." Then he said, "There's more gawlph in my tummy." Then, a messy moment later, "The gawlph came out."

I regret that, in the instant, we reflexively tried to assert the more standard lexicon. "It's barf." But I immediately realized how much I preferred the new word, gawlph - the spelling of which is my own arbitrary affectation, obviously. I preferred it not just because of the novelty of it, but also because of all that went into its genesis. There was not only the viscerally-linguistic conjuring of the sound as a word, but he also conjugated it.

Then, a couple nights later, I was awoken in the wee hours of the morning to do some of my own gawlphing. I gawlphed so hard that gawlph came out my nose.