# I am sufficiently sophonsified / suffonsified



## Dimcl

<< I am sufficiently sophonsified / suffonsified >>

This is a colloquialism meaning "I've had enough to eat, thank you".  The word "sophonsified" cannot be found in any dictionary, yet it has been around Canada for a very long time.

Does anyone from outside of Canada knows this phrase or is it strictly Canadian?


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## Rover_KE

Wow!

I can't wait to hear more about this one.

Rover


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## cuchuflete

Gulp!



> Obscure Words: *suffonsified*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [perhaps a blend of sufficiency and fancified]  (also sophonsified, suffancified, suronsified, etc.)
> _regional_(?)  used in phrases to politely refuse more food at a meal: full; e.g., _I am sufficiently sophonsified!_


answers.com

Never choked on that one before, Dimcl.


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## rainbow84uk

Haha what a great sound this has! Never heard it before in my life...


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## nzfauna

I've never heard it either.

Sounds like a mix of "sufficiently sufficed" and "satisfied".


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## Loob

It rings a bell with me, Dimcl.

But I did live in Canada for two years...


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## Mopsus

To answer your question, I've spent fifty-odd years speaking U.S. English, even grew up in the northern part of the country, but I've never heard or read "sophonsified."  I love the faux Greek sound of this word, and am immediately adding it to my vocabulary.  My guess it's it's uniquely Canadian.


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## Chaska Ñawi

The English half of my family has used it since at the least the early 80's, usually at Christmas dinners.  I've never heard anyone else use it, though, so I'd always assumed that it was a family invention.  

Now I know better.


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## Mopsus

Oops!  I stand corrected already:  a friend from Virginia says the expression is quite familiar ("homespun" was her word) to her.


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## ewie

Never heard it in my life, Dimcl ~ _great_ word, though!
BUT: my Very Posh Grandmother, who was Canadian (English-speaking, from Montreal) _always_ used to insist that when my siblings and I had had enough to eat at the table we say _I've had an ample sufficiency, thankyou_ (rather than the more usual _I'm stuffed_) ~ it was a family joke ~ still is, in fact.
cf. Cuchie in post #3


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## Matching Mole

Similarly, I know the phrase "to have had an elegant sufficiency". This faux gentility seems very much in keeping with the sentiment expressed by sophonsified, but I have never heard this word before in my life.


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## ewie

Wow, and I thought _ample sufficiency_ was elegant!


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## Dimcl

Thanks for everyone's comments.  I forgot to mention that another way of saying "I'm stuffed" is to say "My sufficiency has been sophonsified".  I've been doing some more surfing, trying to figure out the origins and came across this site where it mentions that the word "serrancified" probably meant the same thing in Virginia/North Carolina.  Perhaps that's the word that Mopsus' friend in Virginia recalls.

Thanks again to everybody.  In the absence of any information to the contrary, I'll assume that it's a true Canadian saying.


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## Chaska Ñawi

ewie said:


> Never heard it in my life, Dimcl ~ _great_ word, though!
> BUT: my Very Posh Grandmother, who was Canadian (English-speaking, from Montreal) _always_ used to insist that when my siblings and I had had enough to eat at the table we say _I've had an ample sufficiency, thankyou_ (rather than the more usual _I'm stuffed_) ~ it was a family joke ~ still is, in fact.
> cf. Cuchie in post #3



I'd forgotten all about that one ..... my grandfather (who grew up in Colchester, not Canada) used to say it, tongue-in-cheek, usually after my uncle announced to all that he was sufficiently sophonsified.


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## blueliner

In 1976, a friend and I created the word from " sophisticated " and  "satisfied" in a restaurant in Winnepeg ( Hy's ) ....we pledged to use it often and whenever we could. In my life, very few people challanged the word ( which was the point of creating it ), and my friend went on using it in Canada, as I do in the US.


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## JamesM

blueliner said:


> In 1976, a friend and I created the word from " sophisticated " and "satisfied" in a restaurant in Winnepeg ( Hy's ) ....we pledged to use it often and whenever we could. In my life, very few people challanged the word ( which was the point of creating it ), and my friend went on using it in Canada, as I do in the US.


 
There is a reference to the word in Google Books from Carl Sandburg's "Always the Young Strangers", published in 1953. I'm afraid it's a bit older than 1976.

[edit] Here's an interesting citation on the phenomenon.  I don't have full access to the article.  Perhaps someone else does.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/454570


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## blueliner

perhaps you referance " surancified " .....any footnotes to your aforementioned Sandberg book ?


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## Loob

blueliner said:


> perhaps you referance " surancified " .....any footnotes to your aforementioned Sandberg book ?


You've lost me, blueliner 
What does "surancified" have to do with the subject of this thread?


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## blueliner

surancified is the word referenced as the near equivelent of sophonsified....what is the Sandberg word ?


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## JamesM

It took a little digging, but I found a preview option on Amazon that showed me this excerpt:

Always the Young Strangers, p. 229

At first I let it pass and then worked out an answer, "Having had a sufficiency I sure am *suffonsified* and I'm ready to sigashiate."


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## JamesM

He was referring to the article I provided a link to. I should have provided an excerpt.

From "American Speech", Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter, 1980), pp. 295-297, an article by Frederic G. Cassidy entitled, "Among The Old Words":


A common pattern is "My sufficiency is fully surancified; any more would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste." Obviously, the original, serious formula has become inflated; it is on the way to jocular, even satiric, exaggeration. Our attitude toward "verbal elegance" has changed: one does not say that sort of thing nowadays unless in humorous mockery. _Surancified_, at the center of the new formula, is clearly intended to be impressive and a bit mysterious.


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## ewie

Erm ... _sigashiate_, James?  What could that be?


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## JamesM

ewie said:


> Erm ... _sigashiate_, James? What could that be?


 
Speak with sagashity?


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## ewie

_Eat a cigar?_ Ooh! that's a point: end of meal, have a cigar


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## blueliner

JamesM said:


> It took a little digging, but I found a preview option on Amazon that showed me this excerpt:
> 
> Always the Young Strangers, p. 229
> 
> At first I let it pass and then worked out an answer, "Having had a sufficiency I sure am *suffonsified* and I'm ready to sigashiate."


 
Perhaps my friend & I were drinking like Hemingway  ( we were ) and unconsiously pulled it up...your digging was appreciated


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## groovis4

blueliner said:


> In 1976, a friend and I created the word from " sophisticated " and  "satisfied" in a restaurant in Winnepeg ( Hy's ) ....we pledged to use it often and whenever we could. In my life, very few people challanged the word ( which was the point of creating it ), and my friend went on using it in Canada, as I do in the US.



I seriously don't want to burst your bubble, however, I was born in 1962 and my father has been using that particular expression since I was very, very young. Well before 1976 when I was 14 yrs old.

I don't lay claim to know the origin of the expression either, but clearly it was around prior to your restaurant session. Not saying you didn't come up with it at that time, just saying it was around prior to that particular day.


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## dunescratcheur

Have just been idly Googling (is there any other way?) and came across this 

_"*We asked Fay the meaning of “sufficiently sophonsified.” She wrote: “It’s a Canadian word/saying. In context, it means “full,” like if someone offers you more food and you’re stuffed already, you couldn’t take another bite. You say you’re ’sufficiently sophonsofied.’”
_

from: 

http://tomjonesinternational.com/2006/04/11/tom-in-niagara-falls-april-9-2006/

As a fairly well-travelled threadbare BE speaker I have never, ever heard this said.


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## Mellko

I am Canadian and I learned an expression when I was 16... My sufficiency is suffonsified and any more would be superfluous to my capacity! 

I've always loved the expression as it is a classic example of how to stretch a two (okay, maybe two and a half) word phrase (I'm full.) into a 13 word phrase! It generally gets a few odd looks to boot, and that is always fun! However, I've been challenged several times on the word suffonsified. Many scholarly folk tell me there is no such word. Bah, too bad; I like the word and am quite delighted to hear here that it may even be uniquely Canadian! Most excellent eh!


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## lasimpson

My family has always said (with humor)

'I am sufficiently suffonsified, any more would be obnoxious!'


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## rainexpress

I live in Canada and had never heard of the expression until I read Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood (who is, if you don't know, a Canadian writer). It'll be cool to use it on other people colloquially and just see them freak out! =D


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## grammabertie

The other day I was thinking about the 'sufficiently sophonsified' thing that my grandmother used to say, so I went to the internet, typed it in and much to my surprise found all these different posts. My grandmother was from Forest, Ontario. I am 71 years old, and I remember her saying this from the time I was about 5 or 6; she would have been in her late 60's then. Here is her rendition. 'My sufficiency is quite sophonsified, to indulge in any more would be superstackabonius. I'll leave it to you to figure out the correct spelling of that last word, if there even be such a word. You know how Bill O'Reilly likes to end his broadcasts with a big word that we don't ordinarily use? I thought it would be fun to send this to him to see what he would do with it?


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## Dimcl

Welcome to the forum, granmmabertie.

I think that this thread has established that this phrase (in a number of different permutations) is unquestionably Canadian.  Apparently someone also found a link pertaining to Virginia (or somewhere in the U.S. - I forget) but many Canadians seem to know of it and nobody else does (although many of the forum members seem to like it).  As to its origins... who knows?


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## ordychief

My Father used to tell me that he was sufficiently suffonsified back in the 1950's.  He was from upstate New York, therefor, I would go with the Canadian origin. Dave


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## wblake

I first heard this term in the mid 1960's from my Grandmother in Stratford Ontario.  When I asked about it, she got it from her Mother.  My Aunt also said in the early Seventies that the term was common in either Branksome or Bishop Strachan schools in Toronto during the War.


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## WordyBirdy

The idea of it being earlier than 1960 agrees with my experience.  Growing up in Newfoundland, my dad would say, " I am sufficiently ceroncified, to consume anymore would be obnoxious to my palate" after a big meal.  I'm not sure of the spelling of course, and the pronunciation may have some variations


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## OpaPlano

Dimcl said:


> This is a colloquialism meaning "I've had enough to eat, thank you". The word "sophonsified" cannot be found in any dictionary, yet it has been around Canada for a very long time.
> 
> Does anyone from outside of Canada knows this phrase or is it strictly Canadian?


 

My Dad, who was Canadian, used this phrase all of his life -

"*I am sufficiently sophonsified, any more would be a superfluency*" - which we all knew meant that he had enough to eat and was actually "stuffed".

He was born around the turn of the century so that phrase is at least that old.


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## lorilar

Looks like this thread is pretty old, but thought I'd share anyway... I recently decided to check google for a silly expression I remember from my childhood days... the search brought me to this blog post. 
The expression I was looking for goes like this:
"I am sufficiently suffancified from my conigidy to my conogidy and anymore would be superfluidy".
I remember well my friend's dad pushing back from the table and saying this. He was a dairy farmer and had a lot of silly old time expressions that he said were passed down from the old days. 
That was like 30 years ago.


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## slocaguy

My grandfather grew up in mid-Michigan.  He was of Anglo-Irish descent.  After every holiday meal he would proclaim "my sufficiency is suffancified.  I have stuffed my guts amazingly!"  I first heard this in the late 1950s.  We understood that the 'stuffed my guts' ending was juxtaposed to the faux sophisticated 'sufficiency is suffancified' beginning.

I never saw the expression written but I've spelled it the way the family pronounced it.


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## PaulQ

If I may rain on a parade without offence: I see all of these inventions and circumlocutions, although passingly interesting, as genteel, dated and ultimately failed, attempts at light humour. The fact that the neologisms never made it to mainstream is judgement enough on their quality.


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## sound shift

Never 'eard of it. File alongside John Cleese's supposedly "rare" (and it certainly sounded rare to me) "esurient", which means the opposite.


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## JulianStuart

PaulQ said:


> If I may rain on a parade without offence: I see all of these inventions and circumlocutions, although passingly interesting, as genteel, dated and ultimately failed, attempts at light humour. The fact that the neologisms never made it to mainstream is judgement enough on their quality.


I think the met office would classify that as a downpour


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## Pertinax

If I understand it correctly, "suffonsified" means "completely satisfied".

The word not only sounds quite grand, but could be quite useful: it's a step beyond being merely satisfied with something.  It would be nice to _suffonsify_ one's teacher, not merely _satisfy_ him.  Is there also an adjective, matching "satisfactory"?

"suffonsified" is not in the OED, but it does score 3 hits in Google books, and 18700 hits generally.


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## Packard

In our Jewish-American family the word would never have existed. Food was always put our in such abundance that the only reason you would not be satisfied was if your arms were too weak to avail yourself of the food. And if that were the case, my Mom would be standing over you with the serving platter offering you more to eat.

I am fairly certain that when eating at any family member's home the question, "Did you have enough to eat?" was never raised; would never be raised and had never been raised in the past.

In my entire life I would only need that word when eating in a hoity toity high fashion restaurant that served food with elegant insufficiency at outlandish prices.

(I did eat in one such establishment about 20 years ago in Chicago.  It cost $275.00 plus the tip for the three of us, and when I got back to the hotel I raided the concessionaire for candy bars to tide me over until breakfast.)


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## Embonpoint

I've lived in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Texas, California and Washington state--and this expression has completely passed me by. But I like it. I can't wait to invite some Canadians to dinner and overfeed them.


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## lorilar

I forgot to mention that the dairy farmer was a Finnish man in a small town near Vancouver, Washington. Northern enough to support the possible Canadian influence. They also had family and friends from Canada.


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## ewie

JulianStuart said:


> I think the met office would classify that as a downpour


_This_ particular met office would classify it as 'an extremely wet blanket'


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## BKKCanuck

I'm so excited to find this forum and discover that my mom's not the only person who has been using this expression!

Ever since I can remember, and after almost every meal, my mom has said. "My sufficiency is fully suffonsified and anymore would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste!"

When asked where she got the expression from, she said that it is what her mother said after large meals.

My mom was born in Victoria Canada in 1942, her mother was born in Victoria Canada in 1910 and her parents had come from Ontario, Canada before that.

It's comforting to know that there are other families out there who use this expression, even if we haven't quite solved the mystery of the origin of the word "suffonsified"!!


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## aquamaureen

BKKCanuck said:


> I'm so excited to find this forum and discover that my mom's not the only person who has been using this expression!
> 
> Ever since I can remember, and after almost every meal, my mom has said. "My sufficiency is fully suffonsified and anymore would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste!"
> 
> When asked where she got the expression from, she said that it is what her mother said after large meals.
> 
> My mom was born in Victoria Canada in 1942, her mother was born in Victoria Canada in 1910 and her parents had come from Ontario, Canada before that.
> 
> It's comforting to know that there are other families out there who use this expression, even if we haven't quite solved the mystery of the origin of the word "suffonsified"!!




Both my husband I are  in our mid-sixties and remember our fathers using this expression as  far back as the 50's.  They were both born in Ontario in the early part  of the 20th century but eventually migrated to western Canada.


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## aquamaureen

blueliner said:


> In 1976, a friend and I created the word from " sophisticated " and  "satisfied" in a restaurant in Winnepeg ( Hy's ) ....we pledged to use it often and whenever we could. In my life, very few people challanged the word ( which was the point of creating it ), and my friend went on using it in Canada, as I do in the US.



Strange how some people are willing to take credit even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  My husband's father and my father were both using this expression long before blueliner was born.


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## Quizative

I first encountered this phrase in 1986 when I worked in Toronto. I absolutely loved this phrase the first time I heard it. I come from a "word" family raised by two English parents (my Mother spoke the Queen's English and was always correcting me on usage), and one of my Sisters became a teacher and was also all about English. So when I first came home with this phrase they told me there was not such thing as sophonsified. Back then there was not such thing as Google either, so I wasn't able to find any reference (limited access and all) to this phrase or word. Well here I am 26 years later and I am watching a TV program and doesn't one of the participants use that very phrase. Though I have used it often over the years I had given up looking for it's meaning because I'd never heard it used by anyone else. However, tonight, I hear the phrase and I am sitting in front of my computer so I Google it. Low and behold what do I find . . . it DOES exsist and you tell me it is a "Canadian" word. I will tell my Mother and my Sister that although it does not fall into the Queen's English, it probably does fall into the Queen's Canadian . Thanks for helping me discover the answer to a 26 year mystery!


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## write_light

My parents (Canadian, Ontario area) have used this all my life, so at least 40-45 years (and I suspect long before me too)>

The context was always sated/satisfied COMPLETELY and in terms of FOOD/DRINK.  Their version was "fully suffonsified".


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## MarinerWest

my wife was a Girl Scout in WI  ( in the 1940's)and their scout leader taught them this phrase:  "My sufficiency is suffonsified.  Any more would be an obnoxious superfluity to that which I have already consumed"


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## Ology

My father, born in Dundas, Ontario in 1915, would state, following a particularly good meal, "I am sufficiently suffonsified and anything further would be a superfluity of my taste and furthermore a copious redundancy".


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## JulianStuart

Ology said:


> My father, born in Dundas, Ontario in 1915, would state, following a particularly good meal, "I am sufficiently suffonsified and anything further would be a superfluity of my taste and furthermore a copious redundancy".



Well, that clinches it!  I was living in Dundas, Ont., the very first time I heard this expression - specifically the sufficiently version


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## NukeDad

My Mother used this phrase quite often and she grew up in the San Diego area.  She got it from her Mother who was born in Durango Colorado.  She is the only one I've ever heard using this phrase and until I found this site, the only one who has ever heard of it.  I thought it was just an old family saying.


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## Moefwn

I believe I first ran across this phrase in a Louisa May Alcott book - "Little Women", perhaps? - and fairly soon thereafter discovered that a friend's mother also used it.  I believe she had grown up somewhere in the northeasterly USA.


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## PaulQ

Wikitionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sophonsified (I wonder if the OP entered it )





> (Canada, informal, rare) Alternative spelling of suffonsified.  [quotations ▲]
> 
> 1988, Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye, McClelland and Stewart (1988), ISBN 0-7710-0817-1:
> 
> "Are you sufficiently sophonsified?" Perdie asks Cordelia. This is a new thing they've taken to saying. It means, have you had enough to eat?



It comes to a pretty pass when Canadians have to explain it to other Canadians.

I don't think I'll ever use it.


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## Moefwn

I must agree with JamesM, blueliner.  I had been using this phrase for approximately 20 years prior to 1976.  Which is not to say that you did not invent it, just as you say - only that you and your friend were not the first to do so.


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## Rupert20

This was an expression used by my grandfather who was born in UK 1896 but spent 6 years in Canada from 1910. He always claimed he had heard it first on a farm in Quebec where he was working.
Interestingly it was used in UK TV programme "Last Tango in Halifax" in December 2013 (Halifax, Yorkshire, UK that is)


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## ewie

Rupert20 said:


> Interestingly it was used in UK TV programme "Last Tango in Halifax" in December 2013 (Halifax, Yorkshire, UK that is)


 I _knew_ I'd heard it somewhere just recently.  It was used very jokily.


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## JulianStuart

Now you've spoiled my "happening on that word" when we finally get the beginning of Season 2" over here 
Now I'll be paying even more attention to 't dialogue than 'was 'fore


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## daydreamtraveller

blueliner said:


> In 1976, a friend and I created the word from " sophisticated " and  "satisfied" in a restaurant in Winnepeg ( Hy's ) ....we pledged to use it often and whenever we could. In my life, very few people challanged the word ( which was the point of creating it ), and my friend went on using it in Canada, as I do in the US.



I call BS my friend.  My English Canadian grandparents used this term when I was a kid growing up in the 60's.


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## sprites

Hello Dimcl
I enjoy using this phrase quite often  to express  my gratitude 
pleasantly as a colloquialism feeling satiated after a good meal and commending the chef/ cook is my understanding of its meaning 
I first heard it off of a  SNL show; done  with a British accent, which led me to believe its origins may come some where from the U.K. ?
guessing here as I can't confirm it's origin or date but believe it's roots ,  pre date 1976  
Phonetically its really fun to use and probably a good tongue twister for ESL users.
Would be interesting to find out more.


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## Mr Mechtronic

How wonderful that I have run across this posting on this subject matter. I have used this phrase ever since I was a young lad in my early teens (I am now in my 60's) - " I have had an elegant sufficiency of gastronomical delights". My grand mother used to recite this sentence as the opening to a several sentence long phrase expounding on how she had enjoyed the meal. My grandmother was directly from London England and thus had always assumed that the phrase was brought along with her from England. My grandmother was in her 90's when she would recite this - the question then is, did she learn it later in life or earlier when she lived in London in the 1800's. I am with sprites, finding more on these phrases would be 'neat'.


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## paleoflatulent

I remember my mother using the phrase, "my sufficiency has been sophonsified" when I was a child (1950s). she was from Detroit, MI.


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## maxxxz1994

In Margaret Atwood's book 'Cat's Eye' on page 247, Perdie asks Cordelia "are you sufficiently sophonsified?". Which is what led me on this hunt to find the definition of the word and led to this thread. If Atwood considers it  word, then it's a word!


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## curmudgeon

rainbow84uk said:


> Haha what a great sound this has! Never heard it before in my life...



I have lived in Canada for 44 years-- more than half my life-- and heard this phrase "sufficiently suffonsified" for the first time only last week.


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## nuguru

Interesting to read everyone's experiences with this relatively obscure phrase. I'll add my story.

I first heard this word from my parents while living in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1970's. Our family would say "Are you sufficiently sophonsified?" without all the rest of the phrase. I clearly remember arguing with my 5th grade friends that "sophonsified" was a word. But when I returned home to my parents that evening, they said it wasn't a real word, so I lost that argument. I brought this story up with my parents again just recently and my Father still claims he "made it up". Obviously (due to the all-seeing-all-knowing-power-of-Google) I now can confirm that's not true.

Maybe the word drifted down from Canada to Minnesota. Or vice versa.


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## jim1

Dimcl said:


> << I am sufficiently sophonsified / suffonsified >>
> 
> This is a colloquialism meaning "I've had enough to eat, thank you".  The word "sophonsified" cannot be found in any dictionary, yet it has been around Canada for a very long time.
> 
> Does anyone from outside of Canada knows this phrase or is it strictly Canadian?





Dimcl said:


> << I am sufficiently sophonsified / suffonsified >>
> 
> This is a colloquialism meaning "I've had enough to eat, thank you".  The word "sophonsified" cannot be found in any dictionary, yet it has been around Canada for a very long time.
> 
> Does anyone from outside of Canada knows this phrase or is it strictly Canadian?


i grew up in southwestern PA.  My father used the expression to mean he was full. I have never heard from anyone else until last weekend.  I was serving breakfast at a Lions Club breakfast and one of the guests used the expression.  I currently live in Central PA and am 79 yrs old.  I have lived across the Us from CA to IL to FL to WV and have never heard the expression elsewhere


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## JamesM

If you read the posts above you will find that people across Canada and the U.S. have heard this expression and others in the same locations have never heard it.  It seems to be hit and miss, but it's not confined to one region.


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## Adrfair

My mother used this phrase often when I was growing up in Vancouver BC in the 1950's and 60's. She was of Swedish parents and was born and grew up near Toronto Ontario. She asked is we were sufficiently sophonsified after a meal. No one I know has ever heard the phrase.


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## catzpjz

Long time since anyone posted on this, but I was googling "suffonsified," as my great aunt used to to have this humorous quote at the end of a grand meal, when someone offered her more: "No, thank you; I am sufficiently suffonsified. if I eat any more, I will burst my quiddyquod, and be obnoxious to the company." This, of course, became a family saying...She was born in Steven Point, WI, in the 1870's, and lived between there and N. MN, where we also had Fr, Canadian relatives living.


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## london calling

Mr Mechtronic said:


> My grandmother was directly from London England and thus had always assumed that the phrase was brought along with her from England. My grandmother was in her 90's when she would recite this - the question then is, did she learn it later in life or earlier when she lived in London in the 1800's.


Never heard it back in London. My maternal grandma was born there in 1905 and was a fantastic source of uniquely local expressions.  Shame she's not around to ask her. I'll have to see if my parents remember it.


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## Egmont

london calling said:


> Never heard it back in London. My maternal grandma was born there in 1905 and was a fantastic source of uniquely local expressions.  Shame she's not around to ask her. I'll have to see if my parents remember it.


My mother was born in London in 1908, my father in Leeds in 1905. Don't recall either of them saying it. They're not around to ask any more, either.


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## JayTerry

My dearly departed Father, born 12/13/11, whose Father was born in Germany, and whose also dearly departed Mother would take the little ones to Kitchner, ON, CA for the summers to avoid allergies in Indiana, would say after a nice meal: "My sufficiency is suffanciful, any more would be superfluous redundancy. " Since Google corrected to suffancified, we can go with that. We lil rugrats would respond in jest to him, "what? Your pants are full?" My daughter when she was about 10 (circa 2012) has updated further to: " My sufficiency is suffanciful, any more would be spaghetti in my pants."


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## RM1(SS)

JayTerry said:


> Google corrected to suffancified


So, of course, I Googled _suffancified_ - and got 155 hits on _suffonsified_. I told it I really did want the former spelling, and it gave me 49 hits on that.


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## Minnesota Guy

This rang a bell. A woman I once knew used this word, in exactly the fashion you all have described.

Her roots were in Georgia and Florida, and she was probably born in the 1960s. As I recall, her version of the word was "su*pp*onsified."  But sadly, she's no longer with us, so I can't ask her for more details.


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## ewie

I thought it might be nice (or something) to have a recap of the extended versions ... okay, this is for my benefit: I wanted to see how similar or different they were:


Dimcl said:


> "My sufficiency has been sophonsified"





JamesM said:


> My sufficiency is fully surancified; any more would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste.





Mellko said:


> My sufficiency is suffonsified and any more would be superfluous to my capacity!





lasimpson said:


> I am sufficiently suffonsified, any more would be obnoxious!





grammabertie said:


> My sufficiency is quite sophonsified, to indulge in any more would be superstackabonius.





WordyBirdy said:


> I am sufficiently ceroncified, to consume anymore would be obnoxious to my palate





OpaPlano said:


> I am sufficiently sophonsified, any more would be a superfluency





lorilar said:


> I am sufficiently suffancified from my conigidy to my conogidy and anymore would be superfluidy





BKKCanuck said:


> My sufficiency is fully suffonsified and anymore would be obnoxious to my fastidious taste!





MarinerWest said:


> My sufficiency is suffonsified.  Any more would be an obnoxious superfluity to that which I have already consumed





Ology said:


> I am sufficiently suffonsified and anything further would be a superfluity of my taste and furthermore a copious redundancy





catzpjz said:


> I am sufficiently suffonsified. if I eat any more, I will burst my quiddyquod, and be obnoxious to the company.





JayTerry said:


> My sufficiency is suffanciful, any more would be superfluous redundancy.


I wonder if we'll ever know who coined the original 'proto-version' and when ...

(I was going to do some kind of statistical-stylistical analysis but find I can't quite be bothered at the moment)


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## oldladyCT

I was born in 1940 in CA and after a big meal, my father used to say "My sufficiency has been suffonsified and any more would be a copius redundancy." Some years ago, I looked it up online and found it was part of a poem written, I believe, in Great Britain. I could not find the poem today when I searched and I did not record the details when I found it previously. My father was born in 1910 in Chicago,


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## Packard

oldladyCT said:


> I was born in 1940 in CA and after a big meal, my father used to say "My sufficiency has been suffonsified and any more would be a copius redundancy." Some years ago, I looked it up online and found it was part of a poem written, I believe, in Great Britain. I could not find the poem today when I searched and I did not record the details when I found it previously. My father was born in 1910 in Chicago,



Here's an interesting article on that phrase. They make no reference to a poem however.

Let this suffice on suffonsifying


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## Nutster

I live in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada area.  All my grandparents lived in eastern Ontario, where my parents and brother still live.  

The phrase I grew up hearing from my maternal grandmother, who said her mother learned it while attending McGill University in the 1910s, was "I am sufficiently suffonsified and anything else would be a superfluous redundancy."  A variation I have heard from my mother is, "I am sufficiently suffonsified and doing dietetically well."  It is definitely much older than 1976.

I have heard the phrase attributed to both Mark Twain and Stephen Leacock.  Twain seems unlikely; while he was known for his word-play, he stuck to the U.S. mid-west and south for his language and "suffonsified" appears to be Ontario, English Quebec and selected New England in origin.  Leacock seems much more likely, but he may have been referring to an earlier work.


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## sharontopping

My grandfather would always say this after a meal... I am sufficiently sophonsified beyond my eating capacity, anymore and I would be diabolically stuffed.  Now I repeat it too,


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## Rover_KE

sharontopping said:


> My grandfather would always say this after a meal... I am sufficiently sophonsified beyond my eating capacity, anymore and I would be diabolically stuffed.


Thanks for that, Sharon.

It would be interesting to know where your granddad came from.


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## dunescratcheur

19th century origins suggested here:

"One writer traces the family formula back to great grandparents at about 1840, in upstate New York. Formally the variants fall into distinct groups. In the absence of established spellings, the letter-writers made their own, ad hoc, more or less phonetic. Omitting insignificant differences (such as c and s for and the vowels used for [o]), we find the following: suffancified, suffencified, suffoncified, suffuncified, suffauncified, suffonified, seffancified, serfancified suffanciful, serfanciful, so fanciful surancified, surencified, surrossified surquancified, surquencified ferancified"

Published in 1980:
Among the Old Words
Author(s): Frederic G. Cassidy
Source: American Speech, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter, 1980), pp. 295-297
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: Among the Old Words on JSTOR

Direct link to pdf: http://dlbdl1ube5d16t0pd2eyvv7fn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/among-the-old-words-Read-AmSpeech-1980.pdf


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## Inthebeginning

I grew up in Kansas, but my grandmother from Missouri used to ask us after dinner if we were sufficiently suffonsified. None of us ever lived in Canada, nor did we visit there.


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## StasiP

Check out this Wikipedia page for suffonsified:

suffonsified - Wiktionary

Who wants to add to it?


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## Chris Bruer

My wife’s Grandfather (Grant Scott) learned this expression from his mother (Jean Slimmon). The earliest he can remember hearing this was when he was 8 years old, around 1935 in RR#1, Elora, Ontario, Canada. She lived In Ontario her whole life but her mother was from Ireland and father from Scotland. 

The phrase he remembers goes like this:

“My sufficiency has been saffonsified, any more would be too superfluous for my diabolical system. But...If my words are too copious for your dominion of apprehension, I will try to elucidate more explicitly.”

It is so interesting to see the reach of this expression and the variations. I look forward to hearing any further findings.


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## mardabo

I agree with nzfauna: Sounds like a mix of "sufficiently sufficed" and "satisfied."
I'll be especially careful that this sophomoric coinage remains apart from
my vocabulary.


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## ewie

Every time this thread reappears I say to myself _I must remember to use this fun expression_ _the next time I'm stuffed_.  Then I close the thread and forget all about it


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## LMG1037

I learned this phrase growing up in Los Angeles, sometime during the early 1970s, I believe. I thought it was "sufficiently suffulsified" but i could have easily misheard it (mishearing one non-existent word for another). My parents visited Canada in 1972 - perhaps that's how it migrated south to our living room?


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## Marsionbroadway

I grew up hearing my great-grandfather from Columbus, Ontario’s version: My sufficiency has been suffonsified, and more would be obnoxious to my taste.  I feel like it rolls off the tongue quite well!


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## london calling

ewie said:


> Every time this thread reappears I say to myself _I must remember to use this fun expression_ _the next time I'm stuffed_.  Then I close the thread and forget all about it


Every time this thread reappears I think "Enough! Close it".


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## Andygc

london calling said:


> Every time this thread reappears I think "Enough! Close it".


It's strange how something so trivial echoes down the corridors of time. How many times have we been told that it seems to have arisen in Canada?


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## PennyBRO

I just looked up 'sufficiency' and came across this oddity! My family has always used this expression 'my sufficiency is suffciently safancified. I have no real understanding of possible spellings for the last word, but what comes to mind is a substitution of the word 'satisfied'. Our family is not Canadian or even close.  West coast (Calif., Oregon) of US but mid-western if you go back far enough..maybe 110 years ago? European before that..France, Germany and Italy. We always used this when done with a meal. Anyone else?


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## Ponyprof

Well! I read this years ago in Margaret Atwood's novel "Cats Eye" mentioned above and always assumed it was private slang from the characters tight knit family because no other characters in the book knew what it meant. Delighted to hear that it's an actual regional word!


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## Machinecollector

Both my and my wife’s families have versions of this. We are both from Eastern Canada and can trace it back to relatives to at least the 1920’s and probably much earlier.  Our version:

”I am sufficiently suffonsified, any more would be injurious to my gastronomic solubrication.”   

I’ve always assumed it was a nonsense rhyme along the lines of Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwocky.   It was always said with a big smile and received with  merriment.


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## Tex22

Dimcl said:


> << I am sufficiently sophonsified / suffonsified >>
> 
> This is a colloquialism meaning "I've had enough to eat, thank you".  The word "sophonsified" cannot be found in any dictionary, yet it has been around Canada for a very long time.
> 
> Does anyone from outside of Canada knows this phrase or is it strictly Canadian?


Yes, this is a saying in my family. My sweet , proper mother insisted we say “my sufficiency is sophonsified” when we were asked if we had enough to eat. We were not allowed to say we were full. Uncouth!  Grew up in Texas in the 50’s and 60’s


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## velisarius

But why couldn't you just say "I've had enough to eat, thank you"?  _ My sufficiency is sophonsified is surely _a sort of joke phrase (see post #96).


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## Robin1

My wife's family had been using "My sufficiency has been suffonsified ( or maybe suphonsified, if you prefer ) and further delicacies would be obnoxious to my constitution." in England since the 1940's.  It's origin seems to have been with her mother's family in Devonshire, probably in the 1920's or earlier.   Sisters, nephews, nieces, children and grandchildren and other relatives in England, the US, Western Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Norway seem to have spread the phrase.   I'm pretty certain my wife's family version didn't originate in Canada or the US, but it is intriguing to see how it and varieties have spread and evolved.  Long may it continue to grow and add colour to the language.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

When I read today and was intrigued by the title of this thread, I opened it thinking it was uttered by Sheridan's 'Mrs. Malaprop'. I was surprised to see how many posts it contained, (and by how many "one-and-only post" members contributed to it!) I'll have to check with some folks I know about this..


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## Pegathee

Not just a Canadian word.  I grew up in MN (although that IS close) and my dad always used that expression.  Haven't heard it in ages.  It just came to me when my grandson came in my room to pick up my dinner plate.  So I got online to show it to him & this site came up.


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## Pegathee

Robin1 said:


> My wife's family had been using "My sufficiency has been suffonsified ( or maybe suphonsified, if you prefer ) and further delicacies would be obnoxious to my constitution." in England since the 1940's.  It's origin seems to have been with her mother's family in Devonshire, probably in the 1920's or earlier.   Sisters, nephews, nieces, children and grandchildren and other relatives in England, the US, Western Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and Norway seem to have spread the phrase.   I'm pretty certain my wife's family version didn't originate in Canada or the US, but it is intriguing to see how it and varieties have spread and evolved.  Long may it continue to grow and add colour to the language.


Yes, I grew up in MN and my dad used that expression a lot.   I forgot about the 'obnoxious to my constitution' part until I saw it here.  Thanks!!!


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## SabbyKK

Hello! I was looking up this expression! The one I'm used to is: I'm sufficiently stuffed. Any more would be extra stuffing!


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## SabbyKK

No idea there was so much variety!! But they're all the same aren't they?


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## ewie

SabbyKK said:


> No idea there was so much variety!! But they're all the same aren't they?


Welcome, Sabby   ~ let's call them multiple variations on a theme


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