"Exterbadant" is not a word

you will find in a dictionary. Some will argue it is not a word at all.It was a word in our house when I was growing up - and it still surfaces occasionally. 

Where or how it came about I am not sure. It had multiple meanings. If the prospect of something pleased one of us kittens there was likely to be an enthusiastic "exterbadant!"  It was certainly seen as a substitute for words like "far out" and "blast".  We were told that the former was "inappropriate" and the latter was considered to be a swear word by our mother. That the Senior Cat had been known to mutter "blast" on occasion was not mentioned. 

Oddly our mother joined in the use of the word occasionally. It was not often but if she said, "No it is not exterbadant" or "I want it done exterbadantly" then we knew that something was unacceptable or had to be done immediately. I doubt she ever used the word in a positive context. It was almost certainly a source of irritation to her. 

Yes, it was a word with many potential meanings. It depended on context. Perhaps that is why it faded away to no more than the faintest ghost of a use?

As a family we played with words. We still do. Punning is definitely a family thing. There was also "verse and worse" and the discovery of new words. The Senior Cat would sometimes tell us about words he had come across as he finished his third year of English at the university. We thought it was "unreal" that this sort of thing happened in our house.

I find it difficult to keep up with the abbreviations and slang used by teenagers. Some of them take pity on me and explain but most of them indicate that their language is none of my business.  

I wondered about all this again yesterday because I pulled out something I wrote some time ago. On the first page, set in the sixties, I talk about the young hero's mother going "ballistic". It is appropriate to the time but now I wonder what a modern child, who is not a lover of words like the Whirlwind was, will make of it.  Will they "dig it" or just think it is "far out"?