Ask Lemmy

When my parents would say something was really far away, instead of saying it was "out in Timbuktu" like everyone else here, they would go "it's out in Gadansk, Poland!" I think it's a really place but like why there specifically? Neither of them had ever been. We are not Polish. Just why lmao.

My mom used to say "been ____-ing looong?" with a silly twang. No idea where she got that from and I've never heard anyone else do it. Like, if you trip she'd say been walkin' looong? If you choke on your soda, she'd say been drinkin' looong?

Some kind of weird hick thing, I'm sure.

My grandpa when he would get up from a chair/the couch he would always say, "Going to have to call American Hoist and Derrick".

Now, as I'm north of 40 I found myself saying it too which is funny since the company left the market where I live 9 years ago.

First one is from my grandfather, who is really more of a father to me than my own father. Whenever he was expressing delighted astonishment, he would exclaim Caaaaaaaaaaaaaats!

My mother would always say "ass over tea kettle". Don't try to carry all those boxes down the stairs, you're going to fall ass over tea kettle. Or in a funny exaggeratoy way like "he went flying ass over tea kettle".

My father would append the suffixes -aroonie and -areeno. It could just literally apply to any random situation. For example, if he got a good price on apples, he got a deal-areeno. One time his foot slipped and the car blasted through the fence. The ol' smash-aroonie.

It's a matter of propinquity.

My grandpa would say "I'm hungry enough to eat the ass out of a skunk..."

Pretty sure it was just for shock value

Not quite a suitable answer, but I concocted the saying “stop negatizing”. My parents then used the term against me throughout my childhood when I would pout or mope around.

I quite like the saying.

I don't have any good ones but apparently my partner's mom used to "jokingly" tell the kids "you're special with a capital R" (back when that word was in fashion)

never heard other families say "oy vey" growing up. As an adult I learned it's a Jewish saying, and I asked my mom if we are Jewish and she just said no, lol

“You’re so handsome”

Not my "parents", but my Grandpa. When he wasn't feeling well, he would say, "Feels like I've been shot at and missed, shit at and hit."

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but never pick your friend's nose

Älä välitä, ei se villekään välittänyt, vaikka sen väliaikaiset välihousut jäi väliaikaisen välitystoimiston väliaikaisen välioven väliin.

Rough translation: Don’t worry about it - Ville didn’t worry either when his temporary long johns got caught in the temporary side door of the temporary temp agency.

“Life sucks and then you die.”

Thanks dad.

"Destructions" instead of "Instructions"

My wife always gives me shit for saying "six of one, half a dozen of the other."

My mom's exasperated "shit a fiddle!" when fed up with something / something broke. When I was younger, she didn't really say curse words around me except for this.

I've never heard any one else ever say this. Not in Appalachia, or anywhere. She probably made it up herself. But in the 80s she also dated a Korean War fighter pilot/POW (crashed, survived, & captured, unsure of release details). And he could have had a creative catalog of swears that she borrowed from.

Dad: "I'm so T-A-R-D tired, I could F-A-R-T faint."

My mum always said "If Saint John's bells ring, you'll be stuck like this" whenever we were making faces or picking our noses, so we'd be afraid of doing it (didn't work much). I guess it's a regional thing, since my mum regularly uses words/sayings from her birthplace, but this one i never heard even at her place, and cannot find it on internet.

At some point my father started calling 'Bus -> Bussi" and "Busse -> Bussies" which translates to "kiss/kissing"
We also have Kuss it german and Bussi is more of another fun word for kiss

My dad referred to all fast food as KenTacoHut. Trucks as Pick-em-up-trucks. I know it’s a thing, but I don’t really hear anyone saying “a month of Sundays” to mean “a long time” since he passed.