Betsy in Virginia Beach, Virginia, asks about her family’s word goonus, fondly used for loose, soft flesh on people or animals, from baby thigh rolls to the flap that swings under a cat’s belly. It does not appear in the literature consulted, and it sounds like a family coinage, possibly a child’s reshaping of goodness with a hint of gooeyness. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Goonus” Is a Family Word for Lovable Pudge on Babies and Pets”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how are you?
Doing well, who’s this and where are you?
This is Betsy Madden, I’m calling from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Welcome Betsy.
Hello Betsy, what can we do for you?
I’ve got a question about a word that my father and his sister used to use, and I’ve never heard it used outside of our family.
The word was gunis.
I’ve never seen it spelled, so I don’t know if it would be G-O-O-N-U-S or G-O-O-N-E-S-S.
It referred to loose, soft flesh on a person or an animal, sometimes found in folds.
Like, for instance, a basset hound has a lot of gooness around its face.
Or my great-aunt Dot had gooness under her chin.
When my dad used the word, it was never in any kind of a derogatory sense.
In fact, he frequently would refer to somebody having good gooness.
So, like, our cat had good gooness that hung below his belly when he walked.
Or some babies have really good gooness on their thighs.
And I don’t know if it was just a word that grew out of the family somewhere.
Maybe a young child didn’t know how to pronounce the word goodness.
Or if it’s a word that was actually used back in the early to mid-20th century and has since faded into obscurity.
And where is your family from?
My father spent all of his 89 years in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia.
He would spend summers in Kentucky when he was growing up during the Depression because they had more money out there.
I think your theory about it being a contracted form of goodness is a really good one.
And I think there might be some interplay there with gooeyness because we are talking about soft.
Soft, but gooey maybe is a little more derogatory.
But gooeyness plus goodness, I could see getting goodness out of that.
A fun family word is what it sounds like to me.
A thing that somebody said on accident, and maybe it became a family word forever.
And here you are still talking about it many years later.
It’s certainly a useful word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I could see grabbing a baby’s little fatty rolls and jiggling them and talking about their goodness.
Yeah.
Their Hawaiian rolls.
I always think of the little fatty rolls.
Hawaiian rolls.
They look like Hawaiian rolls.
The little fat bulges on baby arms and legs, they look like Hawaiian rolls.
Yeah.
Soft.
Okay, so this doesn’t show up in the literature.
No, it doesn’t show up in the literature.
But, you know, I’ve got to tell you, here you are on a national radio show, podcast listeners around the world.
Maybe we’re launching this word for your dad.
Well, that would be awesome.
Yeah, it could be, right?
Gunis means…
Maybe one of these days it’ll show up in the dictionary, and then I’ll know how to spell it.
The lovable pudge on people and animals, something like that, right?
Lovable pudge.
I like that.
Yeah.
I like that, too.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, so maybe we have started a movement.
It could be, Betsy.
The goodness movement.
It could be.
I’m for goodness.
How about you?
You can be the first grand marshal of the Goonies Pride Parade.
How about that?
There you go.
Outstanding.
Betsy, thank you for your call.
If anything turns up, we’ll let you know, all right?
Okay.
Thanks for having me on the show.
Take care.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
My cat definitely has goodness.
I have goodness.
Right?
I love the goodness on cats that just kind of swings as they walk along.
And you’re like, do some ab crunches.
Come on, dude.
Fix that.
They’re saying, no way.
They’re just sleeping 16 hours a day.
