My grandchildren often tell me, “Nana, you’re hilarious! Where do you even get this stuff?”
A co-worker recently shook her head and said, “I just never know what you’re going to come up with.”
I grew up in a large, boisterous family with a lot of colorful characters who said a lot of colorful things (Not all of which are suitable in a family-friendly publication like this one. And that’s kind of a shame, really…the naughty ones are often the funniest.)
Why say “I’m hungry!” when you can lament, “Oh, Lord – my belly thinks my throat’s been cut!”
I was always angered when I’d go to my mother after a minor mishap – I cut myself, stubbed my toe, singed my arm – and instead of sympathy, she would shrug and say, “Well, it’ll feel good once it stops hurting,” and go on about her day.
My grandmother would be similarly unsympathetic when I was crabby or dissatisfied with current circumstances.
“Well, who licked the sweet offa your candy?” she’d inquire sarcastically.
In our household, you never had an excess amount of something; you had “more than you can shake a stick at.”
You didn’t enjoy a large amount of Mom’s Sunday Special; you “had a big bait of fried chicken.” You weren’t thirsty; you were “spittin’ cotton.”
And if you had a craving for a particular food, you said “My mouth is fixed for” watermelon or pickles or red-eye gravy.
If you claimed not to see something that was blatantly obvious to everyone else, you’d be told, “If it was a snake, it woulda bit ya!”
I suppose it was inevitable that I’d grow up incorporating colorful sayings into my own speech.
I’ll never simply state that I’m tired after a long walk; I’m always going to pipe up, “Man, my dogs are barkin’!”
And when someone asks me how I’m doing, I am apt to come back pertly, “I’m just as fine as frogs’ hair.”
I often describe those who are feeling skittish as being “nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
Speaking of which, there’s no better way to describe something than by comparing it with something else.
My friend and co-worker, the late Warren Hayes, used to regale me with tales of the humorous things his dad said, the best of which was his description of someone smiling as “he was grinnin’ like a mule eatin’ ice.”
My aunt, looking down her nose at a particularly dirty young man, remarked to my older sister, “Yeah, that one’s about as sexy as socks on a rooster.”
Everyone knows winter temperatures can be “colder’n a well-digger’s butt,” that a big meal can make you feel “full as a tick” and that someone stretching the truth is “lying like a rug.”
Something very tiny was cheerfully said to be “no bigger’n a mole on a chigger” and an unkind person was said to be “meaner than an egg-sucking dog.”
And then there are the insults … so, so many insults.
People in the South have a wonderful phrase to show derision or contempt. They say sweetly, “Well, bless his heart!” in a voice dripping with acidic honey.
That phrase had nothing on my grandmother, a petite woman who wore pillbox hats to church and could rip into just about anyone for just about anything.
Some of her better ones:
About a miser: “He’s so cheap he wouldn’t pay a nickel to watch Jesus Christ ride a bicycle.”
A girl in a provocative outfit: “That dress is so tight, I can almost see her religion.”
A homely person: “He’s so ugly his mama had to tie a pork chop to his leg to get the dog to play with him.”
Stupidity: “She’s so dumb she could throw a fit and miss.”
Incompetence: “He couldn’t hit sand if he fell off a camel in the desert.”
Observing someone doing a poor job at a skill they had previously boasted about having mastered, she wryly observed, “So, what’d you do with the money mama give you for lessons?”
Listening to someone outline a get-rich-quick scheme, she said, “Know how to double your money? Fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.”
Perhaps I just don’t get around enough, but I don’t come across people who use these colorful phrases and snappy comebacks from my youth. And there certainly don’t seem to be any new ones being coined.
I find that kind of sad.
There’s plenty of profanity, but that’s somehow not as colorfully effective at getting your point across. It’s not as inventive or as evocative, and there’s honestly just not much of a challenge to it, either.
I can swear as well as the next person, but why do that when faced with someone exhibiting idiotic behavior? Better to pronounce them as “not having the sense God gave a goose.”
So if you ever find yourself tempted to cuss, just shut your pie hole, darlin,’ and don’t get your knickers in a twist. Think of my grandmother – or yours – and dust off an oldie but goodie phrase.
Now, turn off that light, child, and shut the screen door … were you raised in a barn?
