During my long talk with my partner’s MD, she started a check on the caregiver thing and asked how I was sleeping. I told her I don’t talk about that anymore. She raised up the word “Trazadone” for my partner so I could sleep better. I answered “Not on your Tintype”. And then explained no, I was not going that route again. I realized that she being an immigrant from a Muslim country, the expression would mean nothing to her. I meant the expression as “not in this lifetime”. And then I thought who but those in our generation would even know what it means.
Then that got me thinking about all the old expressions we used that no one uses or even knows about anymore: “Hook, line and sinker”, “lock stock and barrel”, “close but no cigar”, “cooking with gas”. Our language will seem poorer when our thousands of expressions and slang words “bite the dust”.
eat enough to keep body and soul together hold the phone long, tall drink of water more than you can shake a stick at put that in your pipe and smoke it two shakes of a lamb’s tail wait until the cows come home
crooked as a hound dog's tail hold your horses whoa, Nellie broad as a barn
And from one of my great-great grandpa's Civil War letters home: "The ball was fairly opened." (Referring to the start of a battle at Chickamauga.) And, "They beat a tall skedaddle." (When the Confederates retreated.)
easy as falling off a log piece of cake easy as pie water off a duck's back a stitch in time busy as a bee didn't just fall off the turnip truck the pot calling the kettle black straight as an arrow one's born every minute don't be a chicken at the drop of a hat costs an arm and a leg barking up the wrong tree elvis has left the building heard it on the grapevine sit on the fence the whole nine yards bite the bullet hit the sack pull someone's leg it ain't over until the fat lady sings ace in the hole a hitch in his giddyup mad as a hatter can't hold a candle to cheek by jowl clutching at straws dog's breakfast down the tubes pardon my french have no truck with slip them a Mickey Finn pony up don't be a stool pigeon three sheets to the wind the apple of my eye
Snitches get stitches Long walk off a short pier Mind you own bees wax Blood thicker than water Monkey see monkey do Can't get blood from a turnip Don't borrow trouble
When I was in my early 20's I was working for the highways department riding down a dirt road one day in a crumy, now a 4 door pickup, When this squirrel came running access the road in front of us with it's tail sticking straight up in the air. It was a defining moment for me I then realized where the phrase "high tail it out of here" came from.
Cold heart cold mammaries? It's got to be tough being a witch. The crooked nose and the warts. The stupid hats. Flying around on a broom. That just has got to be completely uncomfortable in every way. Standing endlessly over cauldrons babbling curses. The cackling has to be the worst. They never get to purr "come up and see me some time" because they have to cackle everything. Long black robes. It's endless. I'd rather be a fart in a windstorm or a screen door on a submarine or the blind leading the deaf because bob's your uncle I can tell you I would never want to be a witch (with cold tits).
My father used an expression that meant much the same thing -- "Like the darky's mule", but you had to know the story behind the expression to appreciate what it meant. As my father told it, one day this man was driving down a country road when he saw an elderly darky struggling to get his mule untangled from a roadside fence. When he finally got him loose and turned around he and the mule set out plowing again down a long row, and when they reached the end of the row, instead of stopping the old mule just continues on into the woods, crashing through underbrush until the darky could get him stopped and turned around. Then back up the next row toward the road, where he again continued past row's end and into the fence. So the mam hollered out to the darky, "Uncle, is that mule blind?" "Nawsuh", he replied, "that mule ain't blind, he just don't give a damn!"
Good story, Gourdchipper. Here's one from my mother who grew up in a small market town in Northern Island in the early 1900's. "That beats Branigan and Branigan beats the devil." Branigan was the wickedest man in town.
This thread Reminded me of a time in high school when a bunch of us were just hanging around and another fellow started making fun of one of my friends rather large nose. He just point at his nose and said. "What's in the window",then pointed at his crotch and said "is in the store". It was a good laugh.