Origins of favorite phrases

A lot of the younger ones I work with don’t know the meaning of many.
I mentioned “three sheets to the wind” and they wanted to know why I had said that. Told them it referred to a ships sails being loose and flapping wildly out of control and had a reference to drunkenness.

Care to share more that some of us don’t know?

Kid friendly.....

Profanity filter........

I got nothin', at least none I learned from my grandpas.

My old man had a jillion "old sayings" I remember them all, but the proper circumstance needs to happen before they pop into my head, lol

I once said "finer than frogs hair" to my wife. She looked at me like I was processed. She said frogs don't have hair. I said that's the point. We went back and forth for about 10 minutes before I gave up and walked away. She either gets it now or just plays like she does.

I never did figure out how many my grandpa wanted when he asked for a "couple three" of something.

It wasn't two, or three. I brought him six once, thinking math was involved, I got called a smart--- and don't remember that afternoon much.

We also used to say "leaning to Hazelbakers" when the wind would blow.

The farm down the road from my uncles was called the Hazelbaker Farm. So when the wind would blow he'd look out the window and go "The trees are leaning to Hazelbakers."

So now any time the wind blows we'll say it, even though none of us live near them.

Much the same for me my old man had a saying for almost everything. Many which wouldn't pass the filter here.

I do remember my grandmother saying about my constant jabbing.
"That boy can rattle like an empty cart."

Mac

My wife's Grandfather called her sister a bucket mouth and to this day I believe she is still earning this title.

When turning wrenches as a 17 year old ...my buddy was on the creeper under the car...

With his arm extended...trying to put the last bolt in the 4 speed transmission..

And was trying for 20 minutes to get the bolt in the hole..

And he was just about to give up...then I told him ..

Just put a little hair around it....

Heard that from an old timer....lol

My dad use to say when I was a young lad, "Son, you will be a man before your mother is." It took me quite a while to figure that one out. Or when we would go on vacation and on the road for some time, we would pass a large cemetary and he would ask me, Son, how many folks are dead in that graveyard?

My Father in law said that when in the Garage

Lol “all of ‘em”!

My Dad said " That Woman there is easier to jump over than to walk around "

or Two axe handles across

no idea of origins

ringy as a pet coon, dead as a doornail, bald as a cucumber, brains of a rock, can't tell applebutter from bull...., cold as a witchs teat, madder than a wet hen, sharp as a tack, burr under his saddle, chip on his shoulder, cant hit the broadside of the barn, double tough, weak kneeed, all hat no cattle, on its last legs, madder than a hornet, blind as a bat, tougher than boot leather, whip thin, hotter than a firecracker, slicker than snot, chatters like a magpie, dead broke, and drawing a blank.

My dad would say about an old carpenter in town, “that guy couldn’t put a cob handle on a file”.

MY Grandson is so confused by my sayings, most learned from my Dad or other old timers, lol. I have to explain them to him.
Six of one half dozen of the other.
Some people just talk to hear their jaws rattle.
Better chances than a one-legged man in a## or butt kicking contest.
Acting like a cat on hot tin roof
Whats good for the good is good for the gander
Kitty Wampus
Worthless as a dog that won't hunt.
Knee high to a grasshopper
Slower than molasses in January
Slicker than snot on a hoe handle
"chuckling" She looks like she got ten pounds of potatoes in a five pound sack.
Did you "Jew" him down?
Useless as t### on a boar pig.
It is what it is
Some days you eat the bear some days it eats you
Horse Hockey
I'll stop!

Oh one of my favorites: You know what a guy oughta do!

I heard it was two axes handles and a snuff box across the booty.

So slow had to speed up to stop.
So ugly had to tie a pork chop around his neck so the dog would play with him.
So bucktoothed could eat peanuts out of a pop bottle.
So ugly had to sneak up on a glass of water.
So ugly when he cried the tears ran down the back of his head.
So slow had to set stakes to see if he was moving.

Hotter than Tobys anus

That person couldn't spell CAT if you spotted them the C.

That person is so paranoid, they think the football players are talking about him in the huddle. 

“You don’t know what you know.”

I'll get on that faster than a Hobo on a ham sammich

here that is a couple tree for

it isn't a exact number

as in wife asks "how many beers you had?"
Husband "ahh a couple tree for"
wife "so somewhere south of a 12er!"
husband "bout dat "

Had my nephew help me align a door...he said ..is that good..

I said just move it back a CH.

He said ...what's a CH.

Then we had a little chat ..and laughed

you know the one that just made sense one day

call me anything you like just don't call me late for supper!

so at my house there was always enough food and my dad was always late getting home for work so mom would make him a plate wrap it un plastic wrap and put it in the fridge , we had an early microwave he would heat it up when he got home from work that could be 8 or 9 especially in Nov Dec
we nearly always had leftovers as well to take for lunch , cooking ahead was common.

eating with my sister in laws family , farm family , grace was said then there was 5-7 minutes of no talking just shoveling food and taking seconds and everything was gone in that 7 minutes every plate clean and every bowl empty.

that was the day that one just clicked for me.

Slicker than snot on a door knob


boy shows his grandpa a new tool that takes significant work out of a process that used to be tedious or hard

"Well isn't that slicker than snot on a door knob!"

an admiration of the cleverness , smooth ness , handiness or usefulness of the new tool.

that sure beats a sharp stick in the eye!

must be why the birth rate keeps falling , to many hairless cats these days.

Croocket as a dogs back leg.

Slicker than snail snot

Dumber than box a rocks

Tighter than gnats behind stretched over rain barrel

So dumb can't pour pee out of their boot if the directions were on the bottom.



Mac

Kind of like one the sayings around here, "rarer than hen's teeth."

"Good enough for government work."

Used to have a Gunner who'd call me up and say , " Proff, can you send me some guys ? I've been tasked with building bricks without straw over here . ".

Father came from W.V. Had a few sayings - instead of bull s----- he would say Horse feathers - Guys a frigging corn ball - Don't take guff from any one - Grinning like a mule eating saw briers - Scarcer than hens teeth - when he pronounced Push it came out like Pooosh (little WV accent) - Chomping at the bit - Run rough shod over some one - By the way, he called me a corn ball a few times. All I can think of right now.

Sigogglin, haints, cases etc. Sigogglin means something a little crooked, haint is a ghost or a scary thing, cases are tires on your vehicle.

Screwy as a football bat.
Ugly enough to scare the poop off a pitchfork.

I don't know the origin of ether saying but I heard them a lot from a good friend in high school that had a great sense of humor.

With regard to stupid:

Not playing with a full deck
A few bricks shy of level
Rowing with one oar in the water
Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Life is hard. It's even harder if your stupid "John Wayne"
If his brains was dynamite he wouldn't have enough to blow his hat off.
dumb as a sock full of soup.
Lights are on but nobody's home.
His train of thought hasn't left the station.

That one reminds me of another one dad would use.

Girl is uglier than mud fence.

No idea where he got that one.


Mac

it's a horse a peice

this one is apparently from the southern end of the fox valley in WI the area between Oshkosh and Fondulac

it is equal distance

in an ambulance in Liberty township on hyw 41 ,

EMT "well Oshkosh or Fondy ?"
patient " which is closer?"
EMT " it's a horse a peice!"
patient "well Fondy is closer to home go that way!"

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey

Brass monkeys were the divisive on ships to hold cannon balls.
When it got very cold the brass would constrict allowing the ball to spill.

Rare as hen's teeth - referring to something that is uncommon
Dumb as a bag of hammers, dumb as a post, etc.
Nuttier than a fruitcake
Light in the loafers - referring to a man who is effeminate
The lake (or ocean) is as flat as pee on a plate - referring to calm water

yeah we must not have grown up too far from each other

If you’re feeling froggy, jump on it!

If it ain't broke, . . . get a bigger hammer!

If ya don't want something to work. . . . again :-)

That guy is so lazy he wouldnt work in an iron lung.

Dollar working for a dime.

One short of a six pack

Bucket of hammers

Wasn't his time

My Grandpa lived in Bradford, PA. He always said "Leaning towards Sooner." Never knew where Sooner was.

I gave him the whole 9 yards. (Back in world war 2 the machine gunner's ammo belt was 9 yards long)
Balls to the wall ( Again back in world war 2 the bomber would dive down close to the target dropping the bomb and would pull the controls which was mounted on a flat metal panel back tight to his who know what to get up out of there before being shot down)
I remember when I use to forget also back in the day.

He's a couple french fries short of a Happy Meal

2 beagles short of a rabbit hunt.

His cheese done slid off his pizza.

Puttin the feed sack on. Said that the other day to my wife and she had no idea. I said but your an ole farm girl. oops

A couple cards short of a full deck.

Just can't fix stupid

Colder then a well diggers ….

Still and clear out. ( still snowing clear up to your ….)

That tastes so good makes me want to slap my mama

You kiss your mother with that mouth

Son when they were handing out brains you must of been in a different line.

The lights are on but nobody is home.

Heart of Gold, Brains of sawdust

Tastes like More

My dad always said "can't throw a dead cat without hitting an " X" around here. Course I cleaned it up a bit.

I might have been born at night time.
It wasn't last night

lotta Wisconsin stuff there, Ive heard all of them.

better than a kick in the crotch

23 Skidoo

Day later and a dollar short

“Good enough for the girls I go out with”

She doesn’t have enough fat on her arse to fry her ears

"Hokey Butchermesser". My grandfather used that expression. One example of how he used it was when I caught my first mink and I showed it to him. He said, "hokey butchermesser".

You get what you pay for

Roy Garber on Shipping Wars: "Nickel holding up a dollar!"

A penny for your thoughts

I have seen were a penny for your thoughts was price gouging

Your always putting in your 2 cent worth.

if you cant fix it with a hammer its got to be an electrical problem

sometime your the windshield sometimes your the bug

Barking up the wrong tree

Stands out like a sheep turd in a pan of milk.
Butt deep to a tall indian.

My Granny, " That woman is as nice as she can be, but she's ugly as homemade soap."
My Grandpa, "Do you live close by, or did you ride your bike?" and,
"You stepped in what?" when he knew that you were trying to pull his leg.

by Jinx

it's always something

It's a horse a piece.

Uglier than a mud fence.

If brains were dynamite you couldn't blow your nose.

Crazy as an outhouse rat
Naked as a handsaw
Shaking like a puppy passing a peach seed

One of my grand fathers favorite phrases that you just don't hear anymore was
Don't take any wooden nickels.

One of the few phrases from construction that I can post on here is
Ya can't see it from the house

He’s so lazy he “wouldn’t hit a lick at a snake.”
Red as a fox’s a##.
It was so hard a cat couldn’t scratch it.
Black as midnight under a skillet.
He’s crooked as a barrel of snakes.
Harder than a coke bottle.
Busier than a one-armed paper hanger.
He wouldn’t pay $5.00 to watch Jumbo walk a high wire.
Rich as a foot up a bull’s a##.
Squealed like pig stuck under a gate.
So sweet butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
She drove her ducks to a good pond.
Wide awake as a tree full of owls.
He’s about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.
Like a dog barking at a freight train. (Useless)

Don’t know the origins of any of these old sayings but I’ve heard them “ever since Hector was a pup.”

A guy I know from Canada would tell a long story about what he had to do to fix his old truck on the side of the road.
He ended the story of success with, "and Bob's-your-uncle." Not sure what that means, but its kind of catchy so I use it all the time now.

That's a doozie.
Referring to Duzenburg, a luxury car that soon went out of bidness

My son bought me a huge book that covers the origin and usage of thousands of sayings. I find the book very interesting indeed.

Bryce

But most importantly, what is the origin of "Groney Rocks"?