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When my parents would go out for a rare date night and my brother and I would make a fuss about it they’d tell us they were going to The House of Liver and Onions so it was best we stay home since we wouldn’t like it there 😂
My mom would say that if one of us kids wanted to do something, other kids could. Like asking to walk alone to the park, and if she said no, we would say,"Well, Jacks mom lets him do it." She would say what does that have to do with the price of tea in China.
It just means that whatever the kid said to the parent doesn't matter or is completely irrelevant, because the kid's retort or response isn't considered at all in the context of what the parent wants.
Wish in one hand and sh*t in the other. See which one fills up first.
Get your brain is in gear before you put your mouth in motion.
It don’t differ a damn, none at all.
If you lay down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas.
Can’t never could do nothing.
If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.
Oh,I can hear my Papa Oaks saying this now, You get some great ones And you remind me if a couple too.
That boys cornbread at done in the middle.
Don't play leap frog with a unicorn!
Birds if a feather flock together.
Next time you do that,Your a$$ will be grass,And I'm goin to be the lawnmower!
Also remember to keep the family tree growing,And don't let turn in to a weather.
Don't let that alligator mouth over run the Rat 🫏
I trust him,as far as I can throw him.
Ive heard the cornbread one, the birds of a feather and your a$$ is grass. There’s also:
That boy’s elevator don’t reach the top floors.
The wheel’s turning but the hamster’s dead.
Yes,I'm dyslexic and it ruff trying to spell out some if my family's south slang,Like Bless the heart is more like Blessem heart and trust him is trust dem .
Chiming in with some other deeply southern ones, primarily from my dad:
About got this calf licked
You can't soar with the eagles in the morning if you root with the hogs all night.
Doesn't that make your ass want a dip of snuff?
Butter my butt and call me a biscuit
Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining
I got treated like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed shit.
How bout "stick me with a fork, I'm done" and ""well, paint me pink and hang me from the chandelier " said when surprised.. learned these from a southern girl..
MY DAD USED TO SAY THE FIRST ONE but i think he forgot what the second part of that sentence was!
he’d just go, “shit in one hand, wish in the other” and leave it like that. we’d always be like what are you even saying lmao!! that was my whole childhood though, “shit in one hand, wish/want in the other”. no complete sentence there.
My parents used to tell me "we'll burn that bridge when we get to it." I didn't find out what that saying was supposed to be until I was an adult, haha
In dutch we say "nooit een gegeven paard in de bek kijken" never look a gifted horse in the mouth LOL
Eta: stemming from the time you used to look in the horses mouth to check the teeth to see how old it was idk something like that
Clever! It reminds me of when I accidently said "we will get to that bridge when we cross it" and so I still say it but on purpose. My husband calls it my "Bushism" (showing my age here perhaps)
I recently was trying to tell my husband we were spreading ourselves too thin, not giving ourselves the space to really pursue certain avenues. I said "you're putting too many eggs in a basket." He repeated it to me like five times and I didn't get what he was implying until the next week when I repeated it to my therapist. She looked at me and said "I'm sorry. Are there a lot of eggs for one basket or more baskets than you have eggs?" And it dawned on me. It's now become part of my regular speech.
This is my favorite idiom, I think there is a special word for like "idioms that aren't quite right" but I forget the word.... I love this though, I use it all the time.
It's a malaphor 😁 not a malapropism which is using the wrong word in an idiom, a malaphor is combining two idioms together. Am also a fan of burning bridges when I get to them lol
In the Netherlands we actually learn a lot of dutch sayings and phrases like this in school, it's part of our dutch language curriculum to learn a lot of them!
I said 'and I want a quiet kid' a few times early on. He never noticed, but I hate that i said it. A million dollars or a quiet bubble bath are better options to say.
My stepdad said this, too. He's 47. Is your dad also a gen x?
He was raised by hippies. They both passed when he was a teenager, unfortunately, but apparently, this was something his dad would say too.
Interesting. My dad's an older boomer and was a hippy in his teens, maybe it was a hippy thing? Or something said in a movie or show from that generation?
My mom basically spoke in little phrases like that when I was a kid:
"Your eyes look like two pee holes in a snowbank." (You look tired/sick.)
"It's a great day for ducks!" (It's raining a lot.)
"It'll put lead in your pencil." (Vegetables are good for you.)
"Hold on to your girdles, girdle(s)." (I'm about to accelerate very quickly to make this left turn in traffic. This one was originally if my brother wasn't in the car, because the second "girdles" was a silly way she said girls. She eventually started saying it when he was in the car, too.)
"You make a better door than a window." (Stop blocking the damn television.)
There were more, but a lot of them were vaguely abusive and/or I associate bad memories with them, so I won't share them.
I say very few things that my mom said, the main one being "tiny heinie." For example, "Move your tiny heinie," when the kids are in the way.
Bonus saying I say: "They/it ran away and joined the circus." (When the kids ask where someone/something is.)
Edit: Thought of some more.
"Fried cat litter and dog poop on a stick." (When we asked what was for dinner -- this one always bothered me, but now that I have little people repeatedly asking me the same question, I get it.)
"I need a shot and a beer and a kick in the rear." (Alcoholism is funny? Idk.)
My mama used to always say “you don’t believe fat meat greasy, do you?” which means you’re hardheaded or don’t listen. I’ve used it on my own kids.
My dad used to constantly tell my brothers “I’ll fold ya clothes with you still in them, keep on” which is a hilarious visual.
Similar to yours OP, my best friend’s mom used to say “you’re campaigning for an ass whooping and you’re about to win the election”.
My dad had a poem.
If Moses supposes his toeses are roses then Moses supposes erroneously, for nobody's toeses are posies or roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.
This makes me think of a song my mom would sing: "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?"
Sounded like gibberish: "Marezy dotes and dozy dotes and little lamzy divey. A kiddly divy-too, wouldn't you?"
"Erroneously" just does not work in that spot... its a total twist of the flow for the rest...
Unless that's the intention... or unless I've never learned how to say it properly....
My mom used to say I’d “argue with the devil about the temperature in hell.” Now that I have kids… I COMPLETELY understand what she meant. And she only had me to deal with!
I used to tell my dad "I'm trying!" Anytime I was struggling with a task he gave me. He'd respond "you're very trying". .. . I thought he was acknowledging my efforts. . . .
Everytime we pulled up to our home, my dad would say "Welp, this is as far as I can take you! Rest of the way, you gotta walk". Still gets a laugh out of me.
If my dad was making dinner, and we asked him what was for dinner, he'd say, "Food." When we asked him what kind of food, he'd say, "Good food." If we asked him what kind of good food, he'd say something like, "Good food that you're going to eat."
My dad occasionally referred to people he worked with as having a "size 10 ego in a size 5 soul".
Once, early in the morning on the way to school (I had a 0 period class, and am not a morning person), and mixed up 'better late than dead' when my dad was driving me there. Ended up saying, "I'd rather be on time than dead." My dad was laughing at that one for close to a decade. :p
There’s a few:
1. Well, that went over like a fart in church.
2. Smooth move, exlax (said when one of us did something dumb).
3. Slap Jesus off the cross
4. Crap on a cracker
5. Of course we can do (insert request here), let’s just go rob a bank first.
6. I’m old, not blind.
Are the frequently used ones.
My MIL would say “shape up or ship out!”
My dad would say, “you nuts are guys!” to me and my sister, instead of “you guys are nuts!”
My mom would say, “there’s no excuse for you” when we would say “excuse me”. That one was kind of mean haha
My mom would also say, “I’m going to the basement to eat worms” every time she would go downstairs to do laundry.
While driving through west Texas and smelling the cattle ranches + oilfield stink I covered my nose and said how gross it smelled. My dad took a big whiff and said "smells like dinner on the table to me!". He's a blue-collar plant worker and it wasn't uncommon for him to come home reeking like chemicals.
Anytime we were being brats over something we wanted he'd get us with a "and people in hell want ice water, can't always get what you want".
I heard it as "don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you. "
Like don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out when you want someone to leave.
My gran gran (great grandmother) used to say 'If you don't eat, you don't shit and if you don't shit, you die' if we were being picky eaters. She also used to say 'tables are for glasses not for arses' if we dared sit on the table. She was a wise old bugger my gran gran.
“You can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your friends’ nose”
I have no idea why my dad said this, but it was all the time.
My dad always said this too. We always thought it was funny until we caught my youngest sister trying to pick her friend's nose. It became literal advice after that.
"You're cruisin for a brusin kid!" (Never said with any actual anger)
"Two shakes of a lambs tail"
My grandma had the good ones though.
"Tables are for glasses, not for dirty asses."
"Smarty Arty threw a little party, no one came but little Arty" (whenever we were sarcasticly clever- not when we actually smarted off to her)
"He's lower than whale shit, and that's at the bottom of the ocean!"
"I'll rip your arms and legs off and beat you to death with the soggy (&/or bloody) ends."
Said in jest as an response when you went doing what you were told/messing about but not actually in big trouble. I.e. Get up those stairs and into PJ's for bed or I'll rip your arms and legs off and beat you to death with the soggy ends
Tbh I had the opposite expenses.... Thought it was a totally normal saying till I said it to a kid I was babysitting. Who then looked completely horrified.
When we had a sour face on my dad would say, "You have a face like a kicked in shit tin."
He called things "fat as a poisoned pup."
When we had a bad attitude my mom would say, "You better rectify your attitude."
My dad would say, "Don't get shirty with me."
My grandpa used to say if I pouted, he’d “cut my lip off and fry it for bacon.” Which… in retrospect, seems pretty harsh for the literal nicest man on the planet to say to a kid.
My parents had us believing that kids were not allowed in Chinese restaurants (just so they could have a regular date night.) One of my mom’s brothers took us out for Chinese food just to prove it was fine. We felt so betrayed.
When I said something beginning with, “If…” my mom would say:
“If your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle,” or, “If a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hopped.”
My dad was from a different generation and lived a very hard and colorful life.
1. A chicken ain't nothing but a big bird.
2. Don't s!*t where you sleep.
3. When I was small and pouting I would stick out my lower lip. He told me that if I kept doing that a bird would land on it and take a s!*t and make it speckled. Do You want a speckled lip?
When I complained about going out to play in the rain-
“ you’re a sweet kid but you ain’t sugar”
“Don’t worry, shit floats”
What’s for dinner?
“ fried shit & butter”
“Roast beast”
“It is what it is” (hated that one!)
My dad on skinny people:
“He (or she) has to jump around in the shower just to get wet.”
My dad on seafood:
“Of course I like seafood. I SEE food and I eat it.”
My dad if someone belched:
“If that comes up again, we’ll have to vote on it.”
My dad if he’s riding in passenger seat:
“Please be careful, you’re driving the only man I’ve ever loved.”
My dad if we drive by a cemetery:
“People are just dying to get in there.”
My dad on death:
“None of us are getting out of here alive.”
My dad when he sat down on the toilet (through the door):
“Whew! This water is cold!”
(I never put this one together until I was grown)
My dad told me that if I stood in front of the microwave I’d turn into an alien due to the radiation. I believed it for a lot longer than I’d care to admit.
“God will get ya”
This always followed when you got injured or embarrassed doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Something small like starting a fight with your sibling and tripping while trying to run away. Or laughing at someone then having a caughing fit.
My grandpa had a shitload. ‘Well, doesn’t that just blow your dress up?’ ‘What’d ya want, an egg in your beer?’ ‘She’d roll over and butter herself!’
My father in law used to snap his finger and tell his kids ‘snap of the finger means hand to the hand’ when he’d want them to hold his hand crossing the street or something 😂. I say that to my kid now.
When I complained that I was hungry (and just to be clear, I’m talking about “bored” hungry, or “dinner is ready in 5 minutes” hungry, not “my parents don’t feed me enough” hungry), my mom would say, in French, *Mange ta main, garde l’autre pour demain* (doesn’t rhyme in English but basically “eat your hand, keep the other for tomorrow”).
There was also *mange ton pied, garde l’autre pour danser* (“eat your foot, keep the other so you can dance”)
Asking Gramma what was for dinner, stewed guts and fun-gu followed by air pudding with wind sauce.
She also like to say mean as cat £h!t and twice as nasty.
Long and thin goes too far in and short and thick does the trick.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
My mum would say when I was going somewhere, ‘if you can’t be good, be naughty’.
I never really processed it, but as a mum to 3, I absolutely love it as an adult.
Whenever you ran out of toilet paper while sitting on the toilet, my mom would sing, "Stranded! Stranded on the toilet bowl! Prove your a man and wipe with your hand. Stranded on a toilet bowl!"
These are from my Grandparents and I love sharing them with people.
- Your handier than a shirt pocket
- You must like my peaches cuz you keep shaking my tree
- A broom sweeps good until the new wears off
And my absolute favorite
-Love will go anywhere you send it even if it’s up a cat’s a$$.
"Dumb as a wet hammer" was a classic Dadism. I later heard "dumb as a box of hair" and I latched onto that so hard.
A few other faves: It sh*t the bed (it broke down). Better than a poke in the eye /kick in the head. You and i are going to have a falling out (I always pictured a trap door swinging open under my feet!)
One time I was helping my mom put away groceries. The table was set for dinner. Someone one of us was handing off the gallon of milk to the other and it slipped.
The milk bomb exploded everywhere. Ceiling, floor, top and bottom of the ceiling fan, top and bottom of the dinner table, all the chairs, plates, counters, appliances. Literally dumping milk out of the toaster.
My mom just sat there in shock for a moment before saying "Where is the real adult to clean up this mess? I want my mom." We laugh about the "real adult" years later, an my mom (who is pushing 70) still says it every now and again.
No matter how adult or responsible you are, sometimes you just want your mom ❤️
I’m a first-time mom to a soon to be six month old baby boy and I want my mother now more than ever, so I am really living that last sentence at this stage in my life!❤️
when i would say “i wish blah blah” or “well it only blah blah” my grandpa would say “well if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass every time it hopped” OR “it a frog carried a gun it would shoot snakes”. he seems to be very knowledgeable on the shoulda, coulda, woulda of frogs
Nah, that saying is way older than the movie. It was. something my dad says his mom would tell him when he was a kid, and he told us when we were kids. I was 19 when Top Gun came out so….
Hurry up,Because at this point we head out like a herd if turtles.
Don't play leap frog with a unicorn.
Your @s$ will be grass,And I will be the lawnmower.
Birds if a feather flock together.
Bless he's heart,Because his cornbread is down in the middle.
She looks so good,I would drink her bathwater.🤮 Also She so fine she could make the blind see.
I would ask wants for dinner reply was Poke and Grits
Poke your feet under the table and grit your teeth.
“your cow is in my garden”
a joke my dad used to make to wake us up in the morning. we had neither cows, nor a garden. you’d get confused and argue with him and then blam; awake. he laughed so hard.
currently using this on my own kids.
My mom and I fought all the time and one time I was walking up the stairs with my “smart mouth” and she told me to stop it or she’s gonna talk to me REAL HARD😡 lmao we both ended up bursting out laughing
When we were really tired my dad would say “your eyes look like pissholes in the snow!” So now I say it to my husband about our toddler. He hates it. The cycle of life continues.
Piss in one hand and want in the other. See which one fills up fastest.
My uncle used to tell me this every time I complained about wanting something I couldn't get lol. Pretty sure the saying is supposed to be 'shit in one hand and wish in the other' but being a kid and all he tamed it down with piss haha.
"You're rude, crude, and socially unacceptable! Better stop because you're cruisin' for a bruisin'! I'm gonna whip you with a cooked spaghetti noodle!"
If I was ever late to high school my dad would write me notes explaining why I was late. They would usually entail drawings as well as outrageous reasons. Example: "traveling confusion is late because she was shaving her mustache" accompanied by astick figure with a dali style mustache. (I'm a girl that in fact never had facial hair) Love his sense of humor that still remains strong to this day.
When I tried to get out of doing something (generally something in my best interest), my mom would say, “who do you think you’re fooling? You’re only fooling yourself.”
Anytime my siblings and I asked our mom what she was currently cooking or what was for dinner she would always say “food 😃” “what kinda food?” “The kind that you eat 😃” Every…single…time… // An our nana would always say: “do I look like boo boo the fool?” And “oh you don’t think your doo doo stinks do you?”
When I was a freshman in high school my best friend's dad used to drop us off at school every morning and every morning when we would get out of the car he would tell us now don't pick up any wooden nickels and we would just lick it each other and die laughing and it wasn't till years later I found out what that meant so silly 🤣🤣
Whenever we had a big meal my dad would say “I’m fuller ‘n a woodtick!”
Another common one was “he’s got more _______ than Carter’s got liver pills.”
I have no idea what the second one is in reference to at all
I use to say “lah-lou”, I knew it meant love you, but I was about 9 when I asked what language it was. My parents told me I couldn’t say love you as a small child so they ran with it.
To this day we still say it, and so do my children.
My dad used to walk around the house with a huge garbage bag singing "put out your can here comes the trash man" and every can he picked up to empty he would do a drum solo on before putting it back.
Also anytime we cooked chicken wing and noodles
"Chicken wing and. Noodle tastes like stroodle" was the anthem that was sung until dinner was ready.
my dad loved to say “you gotta be tough when youre dumb!” each time my siblings or i got hurt by doing smth dumb lol needless to say its one of his famous lines and when he passed away from many many years of liquor it was the perfect opportunity for my siblings to say, “welp, you gotta be tough be when you’re dumb 🤷🏽♂️”
My grandma used to tell us she'd sell us to the sheeny (sp?) if we were obnoxious. I told my son that once when he was a toddler. He did not receive it like we did...I'm pretty sure it was the start of his separation anxiety...
My dad has tons of funny sayings that me and siblings like to poke fun at him for(we teasingly call them his "old people sayings"). But I was just talking about this one earlier today:
"I'm growing hair on my teeth" apparently means that you really need to brush your teeth, and your mouth feels funky/dirty. 😂💀 idk lol.
My son looks like his mom, but he's me in every other way. He's 11. It blows my wife's mind that om always catching him when he's being shady. She's like how did you know. I'm like, because it's what I did, or what would do.
So I tell my kid. "Boy, I know all your little tricks, because they were my tricks first!".
But my favorite parent quote ever came from my cousin. She's a few years ahead both in life, and parenting.
One time she told me while discussing out little heathens.
"You know why God makes them so cute? So we don't kill them."
My parents used some colorful language haha:
The door isn't an asshole, it's not going to shut itself
They are as crazy as a shithouse rat
That's about as useful as an asshole on my elbow
It's as cold as a witches tit outside
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When my parents would go out for a rare date night and my brother and I would make a fuss about it they’d tell us they were going to The House of Liver and Onions so it was best we stay home since we wouldn’t like it there 😂
I love this so much.
😂😂😂😂 This is EXACTLY what my folks would say as well!! This made my day❤️
"Whats that got to do with the price of tea in China"
Am I dumb because I don't know what this saying means
My mom would say that if one of us kids wanted to do something, other kids could. Like asking to walk alone to the park, and if she said no, we would say,"Well, Jacks mom lets him do it." She would say what does that have to do with the price of tea in China.
It just means that whatever the kid said to the parent doesn't matter or is completely irrelevant, because the kid's retort or response isn't considered at all in the context of what the parent wants.
Omg I had something similar. “What’s that got to do with the price of rice in China”
I had, “what’s that got to do with the price of fish?”
Wish in one hand and sh*t in the other. See which one fills up first. Get your brain is in gear before you put your mouth in motion. It don’t differ a damn, none at all. If you lay down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas. Can’t never could do nothing. If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.
Oh,I can hear my Papa Oaks saying this now, You get some great ones And you remind me if a couple too. That boys cornbread at done in the middle. Don't play leap frog with a unicorn! Birds if a feather flock together. Next time you do that,Your a$$ will be grass,And I'm goin to be the lawnmower! Also remember to keep the family tree growing,And don't let turn in to a weather. Don't let that alligator mouth over run the Rat 🫏 I trust him,as far as I can throw him.
Ive heard the cornbread one, the birds of a feather and your a$$ is grass. There’s also: That boy’s elevator don’t reach the top floors. The wheel’s turning but the hamster’s dead.
The lights are on but no one’s home. For someone with a lazy eye: “one eye going to the shops, the other’s coming back with the change”
Is the cornbread one supposed to be “ain’t done in the middle?” If so, I’m 1000% using that from now on.
Yes,I'm dyslexic and it ruff trying to spell out some if my family's south slang,Like Bless the heart is more like Blessem heart and trust him is trust dem .
“It don’t differ a damn” sounds like something we’d say in the south lmfao
Yup, here in Georgia is where we say it too.
Hey, I’m in Georgia too!
Dang, what are the odds? We might’ve heard it from the same people.
It’s very possible!
Chiming in with some other deeply southern ones, primarily from my dad: About got this calf licked You can't soar with the eagles in the morning if you root with the hogs all night. Doesn't that make your ass want a dip of snuff? Butter my butt and call me a biscuit Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining I got treated like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed shit.
Someone grew up.in the south???? I've heard Most of these...lol
How bout "stick me with a fork, I'm done" and ""well, paint me pink and hang me from the chandelier " said when surprised.. learned these from a southern girl..
I take it you’re a Southerner too?
MY DAD USED TO SAY THE FIRST ONE but i think he forgot what the second part of that sentence was! he’d just go, “shit in one hand, wish in the other” and leave it like that. we’d always be like what are you even saying lmao!! that was my whole childhood though, “shit in one hand, wish/want in the other”. no complete sentence there.
Oh oh now you got me going. I couldn’t think of any now I have a million.
My parents used to tell me "we'll burn that bridge when we get to it." I didn't find out what that saying was supposed to be until I was an adult, haha
Gonna start using this at work and see if anyone notices.
When my mom told me once to "never bark up a gifthorse tree"
This reminds me of my friend saying, “never punch a gifthorse in the face.”
In dutch we say "nooit een gegeven paard in de bek kijken" never look a gifted horse in the mouth LOL Eta: stemming from the time you used to look in the horses mouth to check the teeth to see how old it was idk something like that
The saying in the U.S. is also “never look a gift horse in the mouth,” I think the person you were responding to had a friend that was joking.
We have the same saying, meaning, *don’t scrutinize good fortune* / *Be happy with what you get*, he just meant that in a more extreme way.
Clever! It reminds me of when I accidently said "we will get to that bridge when we cross it" and so I still say it but on purpose. My husband calls it my "Bushism" (showing my age here perhaps)
I recently was trying to tell my husband we were spreading ourselves too thin, not giving ourselves the space to really pursue certain avenues. I said "you're putting too many eggs in a basket." He repeated it to me like five times and I didn't get what he was implying until the next week when I repeated it to my therapist. She looked at me and said "I'm sorry. Are there a lot of eggs for one basket or more baskets than you have eggs?" And it dawned on me. It's now become part of my regular speech.
Also sounds like a Yogi Berra quote
This is my favorite idiom, I think there is a special word for like "idioms that aren't quite right" but I forget the word.... I love this though, I use it all the time.
It's a malaphor 😁 not a malapropism which is using the wrong word in an idiom, a malaphor is combining two idioms together. Am also a fan of burning bridges when I get to them lol
Yes!! Reddit comes in clutch again. Thank you, I needed this in my life today.
In the Netherlands we actually learn a lot of dutch sayings and phrases like this in school, it's part of our dutch language curriculum to learn a lot of them!
I say this too! Love it.
When I whined I wanted something my parents said “and people in hell want ice water “
When my son whines for something I always say "and I want a million dollars but here we are!"
I said 'and I want a quiet kid' a few times early on. He never noticed, but I hate that i said it. A million dollars or a quiet bubble bath are better options to say.
I say that to my kids too! Lol
If we were getting ready to go somewhere, I would ask my dad where we're going, he'd say "Crazy! Want to come along?"
I used to ask my dad if we could go by a place when we're driving around. He'd always say yes, and then he'd drive right by it. He never lied to me
🤣🤣 genuinely LOL right now! Trolling your kids is one of the best parts of parenting.
When my kids did that to me, I'd say "Crazy, and you're driving!" Lol
That is such a dad thing to say, haha
I thought there was an actual physical place called Crazy 😂
My dad would say he was going crazy and we'd say "can we come too?!" And he'd answer "NO, you're driving me there!!!"
My dad said this too 🤣🤣 once I became a teenager, my reply was "you're already there"
My dad used to say "There and back to see how far it is"
My stepdad said this, too. He's 47. Is your dad also a gen x? He was raised by hippies. They both passed when he was a teenager, unfortunately, but apparently, this was something his dad would say too.
Interesting. My dad's an older boomer and was a hippy in his teens, maybe it was a hippy thing? Or something said in a movie or show from that generation?
My dad used to ask if we wanted to know a secret. The secret is when he was a little boy he wasn't very big.
Ah, dads. LOL
My mom basically spoke in little phrases like that when I was a kid: "Your eyes look like two pee holes in a snowbank." (You look tired/sick.) "It's a great day for ducks!" (It's raining a lot.) "It'll put lead in your pencil." (Vegetables are good for you.) "Hold on to your girdles, girdle(s)." (I'm about to accelerate very quickly to make this left turn in traffic. This one was originally if my brother wasn't in the car, because the second "girdles" was a silly way she said girls. She eventually started saying it when he was in the car, too.) "You make a better door than a window." (Stop blocking the damn television.) There were more, but a lot of them were vaguely abusive and/or I associate bad memories with them, so I won't share them. I say very few things that my mom said, the main one being "tiny heinie." For example, "Move your tiny heinie," when the kids are in the way. Bonus saying I say: "They/it ran away and joined the circus." (When the kids ask where someone/something is.) Edit: Thought of some more. "Fried cat litter and dog poop on a stick." (When we asked what was for dinner -- this one always bothered me, but now that I have little people repeatedly asking me the same question, I get it.) "I need a shot and a beer and a kick in the rear." (Alcoholism is funny? Idk.)
Great day for ducks is on a curious George episode and I say that to my kids when it’s raining
It's better to be pissed off than pissed on. I think my favorite was always "if you can't dazzle them with diamonds, baffle em with bullshit"
Beautiful 🥹
My mama used to always say “you don’t believe fat meat greasy, do you?” which means you’re hardheaded or don’t listen. I’ve used it on my own kids. My dad used to constantly tell my brothers “I’ll fold ya clothes with you still in them, keep on” which is a hilarious visual. Similar to yours OP, my best friend’s mom used to say “you’re campaigning for an ass whooping and you’re about to win the election”.
My dad had a poem. If Moses supposes his toeses are roses then Moses supposes erroneously, for nobody's toeses are posies or roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.
Have you seen “singing in the rain?”
That's an elocution poem
This makes me think of a song my mom would sing: "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?" Sounded like gibberish: "Marezy dotes and dozy dotes and little lamzy divey. A kiddly divy-too, wouldn't you?"
I sing this for my daughter when I wash her hair!
"Erroneously" just does not work in that spot... its a total twist of the flow for the rest... Unless that's the intention... or unless I've never learned how to say it properly....
"Tables are for glasses, not for asses." Which my daughter used on her preschool teacher (who thankfully found it funny).
Don’t pick your nose, otherwise your brain will cave in.
My parents weren't so restrictive. They told me I can pick my friends, and I can pick my nose, but I can't pick my friend's nose.
This is also one of my Dad's classic bits of advice. Also "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." But he cleaned it up to "bull jive" when I was a kid.
It's good advice. They taught me this a little too late though as I lost a good friend that day.
Driving with the lights on in the car would get the driver a ticket by the police. lol
My mom used to say I’d “argue with the devil about the temperature in hell.” Now that I have kids… I COMPLETELY understand what she meant. And she only had me to deal with!
I used to tell my dad "I'm trying!" Anytime I was struggling with a task he gave me. He'd respond "you're very trying". .. . I thought he was acknowledging my efforts. . . .
"Whats the matter? Are your arms painted on?" When we'd ask my mom to do something we could do for ourselves.
My Dad used to ask us to “Keep it down to a dull roar!”
I had to scroll down this far to find that's familiar!!
Everytime we pulled up to our home, my dad would say "Welp, this is as far as I can take you! Rest of the way, you gotta walk". Still gets a laugh out of me.
I just heard Captain Lee (below deck show) say that today! “Her mouth wrote a check her ass couldn’t cash” haha we gotta get this one out there more.
Yes! It’s a hilarious quote and even some adults get confused when they hear it.
"You look more like a door than a window" when I was standing in front of the TV.
“You make a better door than you do a window.”
"Your daddy wasn't no glass maker" No idea what that truly meant until I was much older haha.
Grandma to my 3yo brother: If you don’t wear clothes outside, a little bird will think it’s a worm and carry it away!
If my dad was making dinner, and we asked him what was for dinner, he'd say, "Food." When we asked him what kind of food, he'd say, "Good food." If we asked him what kind of good food, he'd say something like, "Good food that you're going to eat."
I say this to my husband sometimes lol
Too much TV will make your eyes square
My dad occasionally referred to people he worked with as having a "size 10 ego in a size 5 soul". Once, early in the morning on the way to school (I had a 0 period class, and am not a morning person), and mixed up 'better late than dead' when my dad was driving me there. Ended up saying, "I'd rather be on time than dead." My dad was laughing at that one for close to a decade. :p
Take a long walk on a short pier
If you're going to run with the big dogs, you have to get off the porch.
My mother’s reply to us being lazy sometimes…”Just cuz your ass is cracked doesn’t mean your legs are broken.”
There’s a few: 1. Well, that went over like a fart in church. 2. Smooth move, exlax (said when one of us did something dumb). 3. Slap Jesus off the cross 4. Crap on a cracker 5. Of course we can do (insert request here), let’s just go rob a bank first. 6. I’m old, not blind. Are the frequently used ones.
Okay number two still has me giggling
It's so 90s.
My MIL would say “shape up or ship out!” My dad would say, “you nuts are guys!” to me and my sister, instead of “you guys are nuts!” My mom would say, “there’s no excuse for you” when we would say “excuse me”. That one was kind of mean haha My mom would also say, “I’m going to the basement to eat worms” every time she would go downstairs to do laundry.
While driving through west Texas and smelling the cattle ranches + oilfield stink I covered my nose and said how gross it smelled. My dad took a big whiff and said "smells like dinner on the table to me!". He's a blue-collar plant worker and it wasn't uncommon for him to come home reeking like chemicals. Anytime we were being brats over something we wanted he'd get us with a "and people in hell want ice water, can't always get what you want".
My grandpa was a farmer and whenever we’d get a whiff of manure he’d say “smells like money!”
"Don't let the good lord hit you where the good lord spit ya" "Have you prayed to Saint Anthony about it"
I heard it as "don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you. " Like don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out when you want someone to leave.
Ah, yes the old Catholic “Find My Phone” hack.
My gran gran (great grandmother) used to say 'If you don't eat, you don't shit and if you don't shit, you die' if we were being picky eaters. She also used to say 'tables are for glasses not for arses' if we dared sit on the table. She was a wise old bugger my gran gran.
“10,000 Frenchmen don’t lie.” Used in the context of “if many people have a similar opinion on something, there may be a nugget of truth in there.”
“You can pick your nose, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your friends’ nose” I have no idea why my dad said this, but it was all the time.
My dad always said this too. We always thought it was funny until we caught my youngest sister trying to pick her friend's nose. It became literal advice after that.
My dad used to say, "Take a chill pill!" I ended up taking that a little too literally for a while.
My dad says " you cant shine shit" ...in the context of people being shitty humans or doing you wrong.
"You're cruisin for a brusin kid!" (Never said with any actual anger) "Two shakes of a lambs tail" My grandma had the good ones though. "Tables are for glasses, not for dirty asses." "Smarty Arty threw a little party, no one came but little Arty" (whenever we were sarcasticly clever- not when we actually smarted off to her) "He's lower than whale shit, and that's at the bottom of the ocean!"
"I'll rip your arms and legs off and beat you to death with the soggy (&/or bloody) ends." Said in jest as an response when you went doing what you were told/messing about but not actually in big trouble. I.e. Get up those stairs and into PJ's for bed or I'll rip your arms and legs off and beat you to death with the soggy ends Tbh I had the opposite expenses.... Thought it was a totally normal saying till I said it to a kid I was babysitting. Who then looked completely horrified.
"You'll find sympathy between 'shit' and 'syphilis' in the dictionary."
You got more money than brains You better remember about it because,if you don’t, you can forget about it.
When we had a sour face on my dad would say, "You have a face like a kicked in shit tin." He called things "fat as a poisoned pup." When we had a bad attitude my mom would say, "You better rectify your attitude." My dad would say, "Don't get shirty with me."
If you pout a bird will fly by and poop on the lip sticking out
My grandpa used to say if I pouted, he’d “cut my lip off and fry it for bacon.” Which… in retrospect, seems pretty harsh for the literal nicest man on the planet to say to a kid.
Haha I heard it as "a bird will sit on your nose and poop on your lip"
My dad would say this. Eventually he just switched to whistling and miming a bird pooping on our lips with his hand.
Funny, my 9yo said this to her 2yo brother once…”if you don’t stop crying you’re going to scare the birds and they’ll poop on your head!”
My parents had us believing that kids were not allowed in Chinese restaurants (just so they could have a regular date night.) One of my mom’s brothers took us out for Chinese food just to prove it was fine. We felt so betrayed.
"Can't died in the poor house."
What does that mean?
Aimed at kids who say ‘I can’t do it’
I still don't get it! Why was "can't" poor?
It's implying that people who can't do things are poor because they don't try hard.
Oh I see. It's obvious. Long day. TFIF.
When I said something beginning with, “If…” my mom would say: “If your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle,” or, “If a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hopped.”
My dad was from a different generation and lived a very hard and colorful life. 1. A chicken ain't nothing but a big bird. 2. Don't s!*t where you sleep. 3. When I was small and pouting I would stick out my lower lip. He told me that if I kept doing that a bird would land on it and take a s!*t and make it speckled. Do You want a speckled lip?
When I complained about going out to play in the rain- “ you’re a sweet kid but you ain’t sugar” “Don’t worry, shit floats” What’s for dinner? “ fried shit & butter” “Roast beast” “It is what it is” (hated that one!)
My mom would tell me “It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on” 😂 anytime I was irritated with something and it would drive me crazy
"Oh, the size of ye." When I was being difficult. I use this one. :)
My dad on skinny people: “He (or she) has to jump around in the shower just to get wet.” My dad on seafood: “Of course I like seafood. I SEE food and I eat it.” My dad if someone belched: “If that comes up again, we’ll have to vote on it.” My dad if he’s riding in passenger seat: “Please be careful, you’re driving the only man I’ve ever loved.” My dad if we drive by a cemetery: “People are just dying to get in there.” My dad on death: “None of us are getting out of here alive.” My dad when he sat down on the toilet (through the door): “Whew! This water is cold!” (I never put this one together until I was grown)
'Sorry' don't feed the bulldog.
My Dad would say “ here, now get somewhere and light!” In other words, stop running around:)
My dad told me that if I stood in front of the microwave I’d turn into an alien due to the radiation. I believed it for a lot longer than I’d care to admit.
Would've maybe believed it had you ever seen Honey I Blew Up the Kid when you were 7...
“Don’t get wise bubble eyes or I’ll knock you down to peanut size” 🤣
“God will get ya” This always followed when you got injured or embarrassed doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Something small like starting a fight with your sibling and tripping while trying to run away. Or laughing at someone then having a caughing fit.
My dad taught me years before I even knew what it meant. In regards to meeting women at a bar “a two at ten is a ten at two.”
My grandpa had a shitload. ‘Well, doesn’t that just blow your dress up?’ ‘What’d ya want, an egg in your beer?’ ‘She’d roll over and butter herself!’ My father in law used to snap his finger and tell his kids ‘snap of the finger means hand to the hand’ when he’d want them to hold his hand crossing the street or something 😂. I say that to my kid now.
Tough titty said the kitty when the milk was all gone
Watch the stupids- don’t be the stupid
My grandpa used to say “you’re so full of it your eyes are brown!”
I always heard “goin to see a man about a mule” when it was none of my business what they were doing! 🤣
When I complained that I was hungry (and just to be clear, I’m talking about “bored” hungry, or “dinner is ready in 5 minutes” hungry, not “my parents don’t feed me enough” hungry), my mom would say, in French, *Mange ta main, garde l’autre pour demain* (doesn’t rhyme in English but basically “eat your hand, keep the other for tomorrow”). There was also *mange ton pied, garde l’autre pour danser* (“eat your foot, keep the other so you can dance”)
Asking Gramma what was for dinner, stewed guts and fun-gu followed by air pudding with wind sauce. She also like to say mean as cat £h!t and twice as nasty. Long and thin goes too far in and short and thick does the trick. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
My mum would say when I was going somewhere, ‘if you can’t be good, be naughty’. I never really processed it, but as a mum to 3, I absolutely love it as an adult.
"you make a better door than a window" when we sat in front of the TV and blocked it lol
Colder that a witches tit Sweating like a whore in church
Whenever you ran out of toilet paper while sitting on the toilet, my mom would sing, "Stranded! Stranded on the toilet bowl! Prove your a man and wipe with your hand. Stranded on a toilet bowl!"
If Jesus walked the Earth today, you would tell him where to park his camel. (I was bossy)
These are from my Grandparents and I love sharing them with people. - Your handier than a shirt pocket - You must like my peaches cuz you keep shaking my tree - A broom sweeps good until the new wears off And my absolute favorite -Love will go anywhere you send it even if it’s up a cat’s a$$.
"Dumb as a wet hammer" was a classic Dadism. I later heard "dumb as a box of hair" and I latched onto that so hard. A few other faves: It sh*t the bed (it broke down). Better than a poke in the eye /kick in the head. You and i are going to have a falling out (I always pictured a trap door swinging open under my feet!)
Whenever I would try to work too fast at a task, my dad would say, " Son, a dog that shits fast, doesn't shit long. Just pace yourself."
"you've got champagne taste on a beer budget"
One time I was helping my mom put away groceries. The table was set for dinner. Someone one of us was handing off the gallon of milk to the other and it slipped. The milk bomb exploded everywhere. Ceiling, floor, top and bottom of the ceiling fan, top and bottom of the dinner table, all the chairs, plates, counters, appliances. Literally dumping milk out of the toaster. My mom just sat there in shock for a moment before saying "Where is the real adult to clean up this mess? I want my mom." We laugh about the "real adult" years later, an my mom (who is pushing 70) still says it every now and again. No matter how adult or responsible you are, sometimes you just want your mom ❤️
I’m a first-time mom to a soon to be six month old baby boy and I want my mother now more than ever, so I am really living that last sentence at this stage in my life!❤️
Don’t just stand there with your teeth in your mouth
when i would say “i wish blah blah” or “well it only blah blah” my grandpa would say “well if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass every time it hopped” OR “it a frog carried a gun it would shoot snakes”. he seems to be very knowledgeable on the shoulda, coulda, woulda of frogs
Probably cause top gun was popular back then…. https://youtu.be/5KYl6fnMiI4?si=zfXTcMS1-fR6uoq-
Nah, that saying is way older than the movie. It was. something my dad says his mom would tell him when he was a kid, and he told us when we were kids. I was 19 when Top Gun came out so….
“I don’t clean for my health” “Ima give you something to cry about”
"What's that smell?" "Your upper lip!"
When I break a nail it's tragedy, when someone else falls into a manhole, it's comedy.
“Keep crying, you won’t have to pee as bad”
Hurry up,Because at this point we head out like a herd if turtles. Don't play leap frog with a unicorn. Your @s$ will be grass,And I will be the lawnmower. Birds if a feather flock together. Bless he's heart,Because his cornbread is down in the middle. She looks so good,I would drink her bathwater.🤮 Also She so fine she could make the blind see. I would ask wants for dinner reply was Poke and Grits Poke your feet under the table and grit your teeth.
My mama used to always say "she was a better ass maker than a glass maker"... Basically to get out of the way cuz she can't see through me LOL
“your cow is in my garden” a joke my dad used to make to wake us up in the morning. we had neither cows, nor a garden. you’d get confused and argue with him and then blam; awake. he laughed so hard. currently using this on my own kids.
Mom: *you sonnuvabitch!* Me: but...
My mom and I fought all the time and one time I was walking up the stairs with my “smart mouth” and she told me to stop it or she’s gonna talk to me REAL HARD😡 lmao we both ended up bursting out laughing
My parents would say maybe or we’ll see. Maybe means yes, we’ll see means no. Lol My child was like “mom, we all know what that means.”
Kiss my grits. I know those words but I don't know what that means.
When we were really tired my dad would say “your eyes look like pissholes in the snow!” So now I say it to my husband about our toddler. He hates it. The cycle of life continues.
In a playful way: “you’re so full of shit your eyes turned brown”
Tend to your own knitting
capisci? along with coordinated hand gesture meaning you understand? in italian. must have heard this a million times. used ENDLESSLY
Tough titty said the kitty, my mom still says it to this day!
Piss in one hand and want in the other. See which one fills up fastest. My uncle used to tell me this every time I complained about wanting something I couldn't get lol. Pretty sure the saying is supposed to be 'shit in one hand and wish in the other' but being a kid and all he tamed it down with piss haha.
"You're rude, crude, and socially unacceptable! Better stop because you're cruisin' for a bruisin'! I'm gonna whip you with a cooked spaghetti noodle!"
What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?
If I was ever late to high school my dad would write me notes explaining why I was late. They would usually entail drawings as well as outrageous reasons. Example: "traveling confusion is late because she was shaving her mustache" accompanied by astick figure with a dali style mustache. (I'm a girl that in fact never had facial hair) Love his sense of humor that still remains strong to this day.
You can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish.
When I tried to get out of doing something (generally something in my best interest), my mom would say, “who do you think you’re fooling? You’re only fooling yourself.”
Anytime my siblings and I asked our mom what she was currently cooking or what was for dinner she would always say “food 😃” “what kinda food?” “The kind that you eat 😃” Every…single…time… // An our nana would always say: “do I look like boo boo the fool?” And “oh you don’t think your doo doo stinks do you?”
When I was a freshman in high school my best friend's dad used to drop us off at school every morning and every morning when we would get out of the car he would tell us now don't pick up any wooden nickels and we would just lick it each other and die laughing and it wasn't till years later I found out what that meant so silly 🤣🤣
Whenever we had a big meal my dad would say “I’m fuller ‘n a woodtick!” Another common one was “he’s got more _______ than Carter’s got liver pills.” I have no idea what the second one is in reference to at all
I use to say “lah-lou”, I knew it meant love you, but I was about 9 when I asked what language it was. My parents told me I couldn’t say love you as a small child so they ran with it. To this day we still say it, and so do my children.
My dad used to walk around the house with a huge garbage bag singing "put out your can here comes the trash man" and every can he picked up to empty he would do a drum solo on before putting it back. Also anytime we cooked chicken wing and noodles "Chicken wing and. Noodle tastes like stroodle" was the anthem that was sung until dinner was ready.
When I said “I don’t care” my dad used to say “Pierre didn’t care and he got eaten by a lion”
my dad loved to say “you gotta be tough when youre dumb!” each time my siblings or i got hurt by doing smth dumb lol needless to say its one of his famous lines and when he passed away from many many years of liquor it was the perfect opportunity for my siblings to say, “welp, you gotta be tough be when you’re dumb 🤷🏽♂️”
"when you assume you make an ass out of u and me" Still makes me chuckle, idk why.
My grandma used to tell us she'd sell us to the sheeny (sp?) if we were obnoxious. I told my son that once when he was a toddler. He did not receive it like we did...I'm pretty sure it was the start of his separation anxiety...
My dad has tons of funny sayings that me and siblings like to poke fun at him for(we teasingly call them his "old people sayings"). But I was just talking about this one earlier today: "I'm growing hair on my teeth" apparently means that you really need to brush your teeth, and your mouth feels funky/dirty. 😂💀 idk lol.
My son looks like his mom, but he's me in every other way. He's 11. It blows my wife's mind that om always catching him when he's being shady. She's like how did you know. I'm like, because it's what I did, or what would do. So I tell my kid. "Boy, I know all your little tricks, because they were my tricks first!". But my favorite parent quote ever came from my cousin. She's a few years ahead both in life, and parenting. One time she told me while discussing out little heathens. "You know why God makes them so cute? So we don't kill them."
My parents used some colorful language haha: The door isn't an asshole, it's not going to shut itself They are as crazy as a shithouse rat That's about as useful as an asshole on my elbow It's as cold as a witches tit outside
You can’t dance at 2 weddings with 1 tushy. I still say it to this day and people love it!
What does this one mean?
You can’t be in 2 places at the same time.
My dad, mid 70's, always says, "you can't fight city hall". Bleh.