If there's a word or phrase you use at home that's unique to your family, you're not alone.

🖼️ The big picture: We all have our own home slang — little quirks, nicknames and inside jokes accumulated over years of living together, Kathryn Hymes, a linguist, writes in The Atlantic.

• It's known as familect, or family dialect.

Familect has many origins. It could come from words children mess up as they're learning to speak or from a funny story that turns into a catchphrase.

💼 Case in point: Hymes' partner wishes her a happy birthday by saying "iki domuz," a Turkish phrase that means "two pigs."

• It started back when she was early into language lessons and tried to wish her Turkish boyfriend happy birthday, but said "iki domuz" instead of "İyi ki doğdun."

Another example comes from a friend of Hymes, whose household uses "hog" to describe a small amount of coffee, less than a full cup. The term originated from a hedgehog coffee mug that was smaller than the rest.

The bottom line: Words have power. Our secret language is one of the key things that makes home feel like home.

📬 What are the words or phrases unique to your family? And where do they come from? Send us the story in a few sentences, along with your name and hometown, to [email protected] to feature in the familect edition!

"'Since I Fell For You' by Lenny Welch was the song in the background when I proposed to my wife in 1986, and it's what we chose for our first dance at our wedding in 1988," writes reader Geoffrey S. from Pinehurst, North Carolina.

• "Our 35th anniversary is fast approaching, and we are still together and not slowing down."

🎧 Listen.