Friday, October 28, 2011

An icky word for Halloween

Random Research led us this week into the realm of sleepy sand—that grainy stuff in your eyes when you wake up in the morning, whatever your family calls it. Its real name is

Gound (pronounced "gowned")

We also learned another of its nicknames: optiboogers. And we agreed that Optiboogers would be an excellent name for a rock band. Also Gingerbread Godzilla. And Giant Pez Dispenser. Stay tuned for gingerbread Godzilla, whom we all decided should make an appearance this Christmas.

Anyway, gound is composed of mucus, tears, and/or dust, and it forms because you're not blinking those things away when you're asleep.

What is your family's word for gound?


2 comments:

  1. We're kinda boring; we just call it "sleep", as in, "I've got sleep in my eye". Or "gunk" or
    "goop" or Len calls it "sleepy bugs". Love adding a new word to my lexicon (a word my son taught me...he really was listening in English class!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. When we were first married this was a point of disagreement. Lesli called them "sleepyheads." I called them "eye boogers."
    I wrote a short story for my siblings once about the associates of the sandman and the tooth fairy. They included the booger gnome (he carries a bucket) and the dandruff pixie.

    ReplyDelete

Lee Ann Setzer's blog about books, writing, and life in general.