Where expressions come from. Share yours.

[buzzbass]

As a kid, my step dad would never use the oh sh*t exclamation when things went wrong. He would scream "ahhh Balls !" My now 20 yr old son picked up on it when he was like 3, and it has become iconic in our family. My wife and daughter have even been overheard yelling BALLS! when something goes wrong.

 

[RED J]

I still say "right quick"st instead of "real quick." Right quick doesn't mean in a hurry. It means get started sometimes. Sometimes it's just verbal noise that doesn't mean much of anything. "I might maybe just mosey on out of here right quick." That means I'm leaving doesn'soon, but with a lot more slowly pronounced syllables.

No, I can see that, like when people here say "directly". It doesn't exactly mean by the shortest path or immediately, but is about to get done.

Real quickers seem to be in a perpetual frenzied state of getting things done "real quick" usually while others wait. Sort of like the person who parks in the fire lane who is " only going to be a minute "

 

[Richland123]

"Heavens to Murgatroyd" is American in origin and dates from the mid 20th century. The expression was popularized by the cartoon character Snagglepuss - a regular on the Yogi Bear Show in the 1960s, and is a variant of the earlier "Heavens to Betsy". Despite etymologists' best efforts there isn't any record of the phrase that predates the cartoon series and it seems quite likely that it was coined by the show's writers.

As with Betsy, we have no idea who Murgatroyd was. The various spellings of the name - as Murgatroid, Mergatroyd or Mergatroid tend to suggest that it wasn't a reference to an actual person but just a fanciful expression made up because it sounded wacky.

No fewer than ten of the characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Ruddigore, 1887, are baronets surnamed "Murgatroyd", eight of whom (or is that which?) are ghosts.

Where then did the librettist Sir William Gilbert get the name? It seems that Murgatroyd has a long history as a family name in the English aristocracy. In his genealogy The Murgatroyds of Murgatroyd, Bill Murgatroyd states that, in 1371, a constable was appointed for the district of Warley in Yorkshire. He adopted the name of Johanus de Morgateroyde - literally John of Moor Gate Royde or 'the district leading to the moor'.

Whether the Murgatroyd name took a trip from Yorkshire to Jellystone Park we can't be certain. Unless there's a Betsy Murgatroyd hiding in the archives, that's as close as we are likely to get to a derivation.

 

[saltydude]

My band name. Gem Boss.

Boss is an old expression mid 60's through the 70's? That means good.
Gem is an old slang word my friends and I used meaning good or great. So

Gem Boss = awesome or, the best.

 

[Gaolee]

I worked with a construction superintendent from Canada who would say "Oh, lord thunder and Jesus, whatta we gonna do now" when things went wrong. I don't know if that was Canadian or just him, but it's a great expression. Thunder was pronounced "tunder." Jesus was drawn out a bit, too. It was very funny, even if he was completely serious at the time.

 

[drummer5359]

I've always liked cross-pollinating sayings to see if anyone is paying attention.

Such as, "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

or

"Great minds think alike, and so do ours."

 

[D M C]

I've always liked cross-pollinating sayings to see if anyone is paying attention.

Such as, "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

or

"Great minds think alike, and so do ours."

We'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Ha!

 

[Gaolee]

I've always liked cross-pollinating sayings to see if anyone is paying attention.

Such as, "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

or

"Great minds think alike, and so do ours."

I will occasionally say "We will drive off that bridge when we come to it." Mostly just to tweak people. Not that many people get that it's got a political origin any more. I just happened to think it was funny, in a macabre way, and it has nothing to do with my political opinions one way or another. Burning the bridge when we get to it is another one I have used on occasion, too. The reactions let you know who is listening and who isn't. Kinda like green M&Ms in the green room.

 

[D M C]

I've always liked, "It's not rocket surgery."

 

[shadowtippy]

I like, " that reminds me very little of ..."

 

[drummer5359]

As a kid, my step dad would never use the oh sh*t exclamation when things went wrong. He would scream "ahhh Balls !" My now 20 yr old son picked up on it when he was like 3, and it has become iconic in our family. My wife and daughter have even been overheard yelling BALLS! when something goes wrong.

My father's favorite exclamation in times of trouble was "son of a B----. You could gage how much trouble you were in by how long he stretched the "a".

Son of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa b----! basically meant... run.

 

[Boone_Mc]

Higher then the balls on a giraffe is one my dad has always used.

Mad as a hatter, refers to hat makers that made top hats being exposed to high levels of mercury and going insane.

 

[GoLeafsGo]

I worked with a construction superintendent from Canada who would say "Oh, lord thunder and Jesus, whatta we gonna do now" when things went wrong. I don't know if that was Canadian or just him, but it's a great expression. Thunder was pronounced "tunder." Jesus was drawn out a bit, too. It was very funny, even if he was completely serious at the time.

Newfie. Sounds like Lard Tunderin Jaysus when they say it. Lots of very colourful expressions from our friends in Newfoundland.

 

[DirtDog]

"

I worked with a construction superintendent from Canada who would say "Oh, lord thunder and Jesus, whatta we gonna do now" when things went wrong. I don't know if that was Canadian or just him, but it's a great expression. Thunder was pronounced "tunder." Jesus was drawn out a bit, too. It was very funny, even if he was completely serious at the time.

Probably a newfie! "Lard t'underin' Jayzus, bye".

 

[DirtDog]

Newfie. Sounds like Lard Tunderin Jaysus when they say it. Lots of very colourful expressions from our friends in Newfoundland.

doh!

 

[DirtDog]

Newfie. Sounds like Lard Tunderin Jaysus when they say it. Lots of very colourful expressions from our friends in Newfoundland.

My fave was one construction boss I had...he called everything a "whatacallit". As in "Get me the whatacallit", "Go see whatacallit", "Where's the whatacallit?"

 

[GoLeafsGo]

My fave was one construction boss I had...he called everything a "whatacallit". As in "Get me the whatacallit", "Go see whatacallit", "Where's the whatacallit?"

And when you talk to them on the phone, "where use at bye?"

 

[Gaolee]

Newfie. Sounds like Lard Tunderin Jaysus when they say it. Lots of very colourful expressions from our friends in Newfoundland.

That's exactly what it sounded like. I guess he was a Newfie. I love that expression.

 

[Iridescentone]

"When you come to a fork in the road....take it!" Yogi Berra

 

[hrodbert696]

There's a particular one in our household. My wife's library coordinated with fish and game to have a instructional fly-fishing class, and she and a couple of them participated. The instructors were not that great - rambling and incoherent, generally. One of them, a guy who was particularly rambling and a bit of a slob, tended to say, when explaining the different kinds of fish, "Them's good eatin'... if yer willin' ta clean it." It became the running joke of the household pretty much any time anything edible or hypothetically edible came into conversation - "Them's good eatin'... if yer willin' ta clean it."

When the kids went off to college they kept on using it without thinking, and completely baffled all their friends who couldn't guess what movie it was from.