I just read of a place called Booneville, Calfornia, in Mental Floss magazine. Mental Floss has a website, but they don’t give away their articles like most publications, so you won’t find the story here. Living in isolation from the modern world for most of the early 1900s, the people of Booneville were desperate for entertainment. And so they developed a language they called Boontling, “a combination of onomatopoeic words and inside jokes.” Some words included “Burlapping” - which is just what it sounds like - and “Walter” - used in place of telephone, “because Walter was the first guy in town to get one.”

The story concludes: “Today, only a handful of people can still ‘harp Boont,’ but the language lives on in tourist signs and beer names at the local brewery.” In the words of Liz Lemon, I want to go to there. And oh, reading about Booneville (I’m spelling it with 2 e’s rather than Wiki’s 1 because the spellings online are inconsistent and I trust the Mental Floss reporter) brings to mind Boonville, a small town in Upstate NY that my mother used to call home. I wonder if their name isn’t the only thing Booneville and Boonville have in common. Maybe for Mother’s Day I’ll pick up Charles C. Adams’ book and learn to speak Boontling…

I’m definitely going to just buy her the book instead.