the plural of 'nieces and nephews'

[Wendalyn Nichols]

Grant Barrett's posting about the recent barrage of mail reminded me that
I'd been meaning to share a coinage by a friend of mine. She calls her
nieces and nephews "niblings," which I think is so delightful that I've
adopted the term, having nine such critters myself.

>I did have to do a lot of the usual polite "we don't invent the words,
>m'am, we just note their existence" debunking. We also received many
>letters from excited teachers, interested laypersons, people inquiring
>about membership, several people trying to convince us to canonize a
>word they've invented, and one asking about copyrighting a word
>signifying the plural of nieces and nephews, something akin to
>"children", a word which, alas, was not shared.