My sister called me yesterday requiring verification of something she was apparently telling someone about our childhood. I can see where there would be confusion because, thanks to the latest installment of Harry Potter, there was some media attention focused on the British word "snogging" which apparently means kissing or making out.

When we were wee lasses (and lad, for my bro was in on it too) my parents would send the troop of us to bed all at once, and then stay downstairs for several hours playing records. They usually left the light on in the bathroom. As a child I thought it was a night light, but in retrospect I see what it was for. The bathroom was dead center in the upstairs hallway, at the top of the stairs, and our bedrooms were on either side of it. So if any of us kiddies tried to sneak over to the other side, our giant shadows would project down onto the front door of the house like a big giant SPANK ME sign.

(Not that we were ever really spanked. I don't recall ever being spanked. But boy oh boy we were sure threatened with spanking....)

Anyway, once we were tucked in and my parents went back downstairs they would play records, and we kids would pop out of bed and meet at the top of the stairs. We eventually learned we couldn't cross without being seen, so we'd just whisper really loudly to each other. We'd talk about things and sing along to the music and dance and have a lot of fun. And, being kids, we'd get to giggling too much. And when Mom heard us giggling it was "YOU KIDS GET BACK TO BED THIS INSTANT!" and we'd pile into bed, hold our collective breath, and sneak out again the instant the music started up again.

It soon became clear to us that giggling was our Achilles' heel. What to do? I believe *I* was the brilliant child who first brought my pillow along with me. If I felt that I was going to laugh too hard I would laugh into the pillow to stifle the sound so we wouldn't get in trouble. As you can imagine this created a whole medley of snorting and choking sounds.

We started referring to the practice of stifling our giggles with a pillow as "snogging", since that's what it sounded like. It became a family word. When we outgrew our pillows it grew into a more general term of trying (unsuccessfully) to hide the fact that you are laughing in a situation where you shouldn't be laughing. Like when I was a bridesmaid at my sister's wedding. But that's another story.

I so equate the term "snogging" with laughing into a pillow I must admit I find the British meaning comparatively revolting, since I think "snogging" someone must mean using them the way we used to use the pillow, which involved burying our face into it and snorting and choking and all the resultant small child things that may be the result of such an action. So every time during the British "snogging" invasion I heard the term I found it extremely distasteful, since I would not care to "snog" another person in the manner I used to "snog" my pillow. Eeeew.

Anyway, that's what we mean should you ever hear me and/or my siblings use the word "snogging". There is never another person involved, nor would you ever want to be the other person. Being snogged, in this sense, would be distinctly unpleasant.

Mojo