Roald Dahl’s absolutely squiffling children’s novel The BFG is coming to cinemas on June 30!
If you’ve never read it, The BFG centres around little orphan named Sophie, who is abducted in the middle of the night by a mysterious figure… “something very tall and very black and very thin”. It turns out that her very tall abductor is a GIANT, and not just any giant, but a friendly giant. (Trust us, the friendly part is important).
Slowly the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) and Sophie become friends and he introduces her to a world she never knew existed.
Throughout the book the BFG uses a language all of his own, as he says “Words… is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.”
A mish-mash of familiar words, it can be a little bit confusing to figure out what he means, so we’ve decoded a few for you. Feel free to throw them into everyday babblements to make them more interesting!
Babblements: Conversations, e.g. “We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean.”
Whoopsey-splunkers: Splendid, e.g. “How whoopsey-splunkers! How absolutely squiffling! l is all of a stutter.”
Whizzpopper: To break wind, e.g. “Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness.”
Right or left?: Right or wrong, e.g. “Meanings is not important, said the BFG. I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.”
Delumptious: Delicious, e.g. “Delumptious fizzy frobscottle…”
Ucky-mucky: Messy, e.g. “You will be coming to an ucky-mucky end if any of them should ever be getting his gogglers upon you.”
You can find more delumptious words the BFG uses in Roald Dahl’s Gobblefunk Glossary located here.
