the things we say

I love words. It fascinates me to hear unfamiliar expressions ... then I begin to wonder how they came to be. I learned a new one just today and it's an oldie.

Jenny posted a hilarious "I'm a stinker" photo of Ashlyn on Instagram. Jenny's caption: "This girl is full of p & v today." Never having heard this, I asked my wise husband, Bill. "Oh, that's piss and vinegar!" Apparently this was a common expression among grandmas of long ago. Pretty funny!

"I need to rid up this house." I first heard this from Bill. It means to straighten up the house but I think it makes no sense at all.

"Leave the dog out." OK, this is a grammar peeve of mine. I remember as a kid in school, my English teacher warned against mixing up "leave" and "let." I wondered who would confuse them, until I met my husband's family. They do it all the time. The only way to LEAVE the dog out is if she is ALREADY out. Right?

He calls a vacuum cleaner a "sweeper" and he sweeps the floor with it. I use a broom to sweep and vacuum with a vacuum.

Bill's a midwesterner and I have solid southern roots and it shows in our expressions. He'd never heard the expression I grew up hearing as my mother put dinner on the table: "I'm taking it up!" Bill thought maybe we were eating upstairs. It means serving up the food.

"I'll just be in the road." I first heard this from Bill's mom, now 95. It has nothing to do with the road. It means being in the way. If there are too many people in your kitchen, then someone's in the road!

"Yes ma'am, no ma'am. Yes sir, no sir." This is pure southern courtesy. Growing up, I knew these expressions were the expected way to answer anyone older or in authority. Teachers, store clerks, neighbors, grandparents and certainly parents. I could expect a stern look and a "yes, WHAT?" if ever I forgot the "ma'am" or "sir" in answering a question. Even as a young adult, I continued to answer my father this way.

"Bless your heart." Maybe it's not so regional, but I don't hear it as often in the north. My grandmother said it often. And how I miss hearing it from her.

What expressions catch your ear?

son of a gun!

I've been under the weather for a few days, battling a cold and sore throat. Fascinated with words and phrases, I wondered how this one came about. A quick google search came up with all sorts of phrases and their origins. Many have several possible origins. Here are some I discovered:

Under the weather is a nautical term that was originated in the British navy. When a sailor was ill, he was kept below decks, and thus, under the weather.

Son of a gun. Babies born on ships were often put to sleep in hammocks swung from the cannons. In many cases, the father of the child was uncertain, so a male baby was called a "son of a gun".

It´s raining cats and dogs. Back in the 1500´s, cats and dogs would sleep up in the thatched roofs. This got very difficult when it rained, since the straw would become slippery and they would slide right off the roof, making it appear that it was indeed raining animals.

Sleep tight. From Bob Vila's tour of famous American homes: In Colonial America (and, presumably in Europe as well) the beds were not of the box spring variety that we enjoy today. The mattress laid on top of a web of ropes. There was a tool - an iron type of gadget that looked somewhat like an old clothes pin but larger - which was used to tighten the ropes when they became too slack. Thus, the expression "sleep tight."

Honeymoon. It was the accepted practice in Babylonia 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon".

There are hundreds of others!

My main source is http://www.goodwords.com/.