I have often been heard exclaiming-in an oddly slow and accented voice-the phrase "pants in the shape of gold!" I am fully aware that this phrase is unusual, since physical objects-especially pants-cannot, by nature, be in the shape of a color. While gold is also an object, it has no identifiably "natural" shape, thus banishing once more the phrase "pants in the shape of gold!" to the realms of nonsense. However, this phrase does make sense-to three people. It is a memory-a funny thing that was accidentally said between me and my family members-that means nothing to anyone who is not me.

In his book Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez makes the assertion that a "family's language" should never be used in school, that it is an intimate and separate thing, a sacred part of life that should not be publicized. While he is speaking specifically about families whose primary language is not the language they use in public (he spoke Spanish at home and English at school), I believe it is possibly to have a "family language" that is your primary language (I speak English at home and at school). I do believe the family language is special, and should not be perverted. But I also think there are times when public acquaintances-peers, co-workers-should be allowed a glimpse of-be allowed the opportunity to be a part of-one's "family" language.

It is possible that I am eccentric. Maybe every other human on earth completely separates biological family from external community, but I don't. Because there's family, and then there's family. Phrases, words, expressions that were created, spawned from the absurdity of my parents and siblings, can't help but leak out of me when I feel particularly benevolent towards my friends at school. It might come out in the sudden outburst of song (my family sings show tunes at the top of their lungs), or in response to a question ("Jolly!" "Spiffy!"), or I may just suddenly wish to include someone intimately into my world-my family-for a little while ("You look pretty...except for your face!").

Some people are a little unnerved when I lasso them into my family language; a little uncomfortable seeing personal expressions directed to them at school, where academic, generic, and teenage-colloquialisms are the only forms of communication. It seems, however, that people not only get used to my overpowering intimacy, but, over time, they truly enjoy it (I cannot speak on behalf of them all; perhaps they are just really good actors); they revel in the comfortable ease of "family talk" in a place where family is not actually present. Naturally, this sort of language is not used frequently, but in almost-random bursts of good-will and exuberance.

Do not get me wrong, there are times when family language at school becomes annoying, indecent, or frightening. I may use a phrase with a good friend, and later a mere acquaintance-someone I would not consider part of my "non-biological family"-would address me with the same, intimate phrase. Without the personal history, that long-tended connection, family language can be perverted simply because the other person does not "get it" - and because it cannot be explained. You either understand it or you don't.

Modesty is another thing that can make family-phrases awkward between non non-biological family (translation: mere acquaintances). If you share a family saying that is crass, contains a swear-word, or makes a racial, religious, sexist, etc., slur, in any way, the sharing of family language can simply be insulting if not given and received in the right setting and context.

While I agree with Mr. Rodriguez that family language is sacred and private, I think that my definition of family is broader than his. Or, perhaps my childhood has simply rendered me open to making people family; a fact made easier by my having been born a white girl in an Anglo-Saxon-dominated country. I am not an immigrant. I learned no second language, no completely foreign tongue. My "public" speech was simply a modified and censored form of my private speech. In this, perhaps, is our great difference: he, by nature of his childhood (being the only Spanish-speaking family in his entire neighborhood and school), cannot perceive family language as anything other than completely private, whereas I have two families: the one from which my family language springs, and the one I share my family language with.