As I was growing up, my family had a couple of sayings I took for granted were universal, at least within my language. As I became an adult I have learned that these are not universal at all:
- the ketchup effect. It is an expression meaning that when things arrive, they all arrive at the same time. Think of an old school glass ketchup bottle. When you hit the bottom of it, first there is nothing, then there is nothing and then the entire content is on your food.
- faster than Jesus slid down the mount of olives. Basically a saying that implies that the mount of olives is slippery due to olive oil and Jesus slipped.
- What you lack in memory, your legs suffer. An expression meaning that when you are forgetful, you usually need to run back and thus your legs suffer.
Please share your own weird family sayings.
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You better finish your dinner, don’t you know there are starving children in Africa?
Turns out that one was actually universal.
I guess so!
Were you born in the 1970s? Both me and my wife heard that exact same sentence from our mothers.
Yup. We also might come from the “step on a crack, break your mother’s back” generation?
We have a similar saying in my family, but it translates into break one generation at a time, meaning you allow the kids to be lazy while the parents work themselves to death. It is usually used as a dig when someone younger is lazy.
that persisted well into the 90s at least
Slickern owlshit
“That’s the cock for Dolly!” - Finally got that working.
“Life’s tough. It’s even tougher when you’re stupid.”
-my grandfather quoting a line from a John Wayne movie I think.
“If you’re gonna be stupid, you’ve gotta be tough,” is one I’ve heard.
There is even a song for it!
Is there really?! Do you know the artist? I think I messed the quote up a bit cuz I didn’t get anything from googling it and even when I read it out loud it doesn’t sound quite right.
Lol well this reminds me of what my Hodor sized buddy’s foreman used to say about him, “Thank God he can lift a ton cuz he can’t fucking spell it.” 🤣
That’s fucking great
“Does a hawks arse pucker in a power dive?” When someone asked a question that had an unequivocal answer of yes. Similar to does a bear shit in the woods,
DEGUSTIBUSNONESTDISPUTANDUM
not sure I spelled it right, means “regarding personal tastes, there is no dispute”
Also another good one, “moderation in everything, including moderation.”
We quoted Oscar Wilde around our house quite a bit. Glad someone else out there was too!
I think the full phrase is De gustibus non disputandum in contradictorium (declinations might be off somewhere)
I always say “moderation in everything, including moderation” often as well
The last one’s very similar to a german saying: “Was man nicht im Kopf hat, muss man in den Beinen haben.”
That literally translates to “What you don’t have in your head, you have to have in your legs.”
So that’s 3 people in this thread that brought this up. What does it mean? Is it intelligence versus athletics or something else?
“Work smarter, not harder”
I think this one means, either you use your intelligence or use your physical strength to do things. Guess it applies to work and tasks in general.
If you leave stuff in the other room, you walk more to go get it.
If you don’t think to bring something with you, you have to go back and get it (for example)
Means work smarter, not harder.
Yeah my family (mostly my grandma) used that one too but in Dutch. Wat je kop vergeet moeten de benen ontgelden.
“watch the ficus” - telling somebody to be more careful after they do something clumsy like tripping or nearly dropping something. I used it in front of some friends once and got confused looks. Apparently grandma used to have a potted ficus tree and used to tell me to watch it when I was playing close to it, so it stuck as a saying in the family.
haha awesome. So concise, it does sound like a wise saying
“Dead meat is hung, live meat is hanged.” Turns out most people’s grandma’s aren’t radical leftist english teachers.
Not a family saying, but my grandad used this joke soooo often:
Q: What’s the difference between a snake in the grass and a goose?
A: A snake in the grass is an asp in the grass, but a grasp in the ass is a goose!
My folks liked to purposefully mix metaphors, so instead of saying “The worm has turned”, they’d say, “The shoe has turned” and “The worm is on the other foot”.
I’m sure there’s an origin somewhere, but since I don’t know it, the call-out for doing something particularly dumb was, “Why don’t you just ram your face into my fist?” (suggesting your stupidity was impressive, but not worth the actual bother of ‘punishing’ you for it, especially given you were probably stupid enough to punish yourself).
Mixed metaphor dad jokes are classic, I really enjoy them.
Does the Pope shit in the woods!?!
I guess we gotta burn that bridge when we come to it.
To correct someone from saying “so” too much:
“Sew buttons on ice cream”
“Hey” too much:
“Hay is for horses”
“Well” too much:
“Well, well, well - that’s three holes in the ground”
Micromanage much?!?!
“Sew buttons on your underwear” is how I’ve heard it.
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Perhaps the futility is the point.
“si” (italian yes) too much:
If you say si too much, you become a sisi.
I like the some in conversation says “but hey…”
I quickly interject “Butt hay is for butt horses”
Dad humor.
“Hay is for horses” is universal. I do agree that these are all dumb though.
True
My dad used to say “Hay is for horses, I eat oats.”
“play with fire. get burnt!!!” or “play with a cobra. your face gets bitten!!”. both mean the same concept and are truly interesting and true
If you get hung in a rut, you better lock those hubs in. Cat get your tail out the fire!
My mom used to describe a solution to a problem that worked well as “slicker than snot”
Used that phrase in a work meeting once when I was younger and got the most eclectic mix of reactions ranging from, “ think I’m going to vomit” to full on LOLs.
I’m stealing that one.
“Don’t yuk somebody else’s yum.”
peak late 90s/early 00s internet there.
My family never said that, but I’ve heard a lot of the native English speakers say that.
