A listener in Shreveport, Louisiana, reports that after a fine meal, her father used to announce, “I have dined sufficiently, and I have been well surossified.” It’s a joking exaggeration of the word satisfied. In a 1980 article in American Speech, former editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English Frederic G. Cassidy reported lots of variations, including suffancifed, suffencified, suffoncified, suffuncified, and ferancified. Another version of the phrase goes, “My sufficiency is fully surancified; any more would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste.” We also talked about it in 2010. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Surrosified”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Jackie Dozier calling in from Shreveport, Louisiana.
How are you this morning?
Excellent. Jackie, how are you?
Hi, Jackie.
Very well.
What can we help with?
Well, my dad used to have the same. My dad was born in 1916, World War II vet. He started out in the Army as a cook. My mother was a very good cook. Betty Crocker was her nickname. And she used to fix us pretty good meals. And my dad would always compliment her by saying, I have dined sufficiently, and the food was well seracified. And I’ve been trying to find the meaning or the spelling of seracified.
I was on program one time in Shreveport to do the blessing big event, about 600 people in attendance. Judge Greg Mathis was our keynote speaker. And I blessed the food, and I used that term. And there was such a roar of laughter in the audience. And everybody said, where did you get that from? What does that mean? And I thought, all I could say is I figured what my dad was saying was the food was well prepared and it tastes good.
Yeah.
I couldn’t find the spelling of it or anything. So can you guys help me with that, please?
Oh, yeah.
We sure can.
Absolutely.
Wow.
I know it’s been 10 years. Jackie, we sure can. Let’s hear that phrase again. I have dined sufficiently, and the food was well seracified.
This is great, Jackie. We have a long list of variations of this. This kind of construction has been around for a long time, and it’s exactly, as you said, sort of this formal-sounding pronouncement after you’ve eaten.
Yeah.
It breaks down into two general parts, one of which is refusing the food, the other of which is sort of elegantly, daintily explaining why you’re refusing more food, which is exactly what you did, right?
Yeah.
See, my dad was always in the connotation that it was a compliment. It was something good, you know. And maybe he had sufficient enough food, and I don’t know. So you guys helped me with that. And it’s sort of fun, too, though, right?
It is.
I’m telling you, it was a big laughter. I got text messages, e-mails. What does that mean? I thought, oh, I got myself in trouble because I can’t explain it.
Yeah.
There’s a wonderful article that we can send you to online in American Speech from how long ago was it?
1980.
1980. And Frederick G. Cassidy from the University of Wisconsin collected a whole lot of these. Saffancified, Saffensified, Saffonsified, Saffunsified? 20 or more, by my count.
Yeah, for rancified, sir-rancified, sir-fanciful. It just goes on and on and on, and it’s got that common thread that we’ve been talking about, but there are just lots of different variations. You can just picture all these people pushing back from the table. And so they’re all kind of ridiculous, hyper-exaggerated versions of the word satisfied, right?
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Makes sense.
Yeah, and mixing in sufficient, too.
Yeah.
-huh.
And so some of the versions that he has in this article, my sufficiency is fully sarancified anymore would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste.
Oh, I love that one.
An older one, I have had a genteel sufficiency. Anymore would be superfluity.
Wow.
So I guess that’s it. So lots of variations. You say about 20 of them?
At least.
At least. And all different combinations of the first part of the phrase and the last part of the phrase.
Wow.
Thank you guys so very much.
Take care now.
I appreciate that. I’m going to share that with my other nine siblings as well.
Oh, boy, yeah.
Keep it going.
Yes, sir.
You got that right. We’re going to have to do it in honor of Dad.
Oh, that’s so sweet.
Take care now.
Bye-bye.
And we will put a link to that on our website.
Absolutely.
One of the things about this phrase is that it’s fun to say and it’s fun to hear, and it’s a mystery when people ask us about it, right? So when it comes up in email or voicemail, people are befuddled, just like Jackie was. But the relief, the palpable relief that there’s an answer and a source that other people are doing it, too.
Yeah, we just heard it, right?
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