Old sayings . . . what do they mean?

[Vasily]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

Oh - weather prognostication ones!! My grandmother used to say “when the trees are showing silver it’s going to rain.”

When it thundered, my grandmother used to say it was the angels bowling in heaven.

[pvande55]

Pulling out all the stops refers to ye olde pipe organs. There were stops to limit the volume.

[Lodestar]

Originally Posted by Vasily

When it thundered, my grandmother used to say it was the angels bowling in heaven.

This one is an old one in my neighborhood and takes some explaining. Odin was one of the old Norse gods. There were people whose last name was Odin who settled there at the turn of the last century.

In those days they traveled by horse drawn wagon and apparently some road actually went through a dried up river bed. I suppose it was extra rocky and noisy to traverse.

When it would thunder my dad would say, "Sounds like Pete Odin going over the riverbed."

Pete was long dead before I was born but his name lives on every time it thunders!

[Mrs. Skeffington]

I grew up Pennsylvania Dutch, and there are a ton of Pennsylvania Dutch phrases I find myself using that leave others scratching their heads. One is, knoatch. Meaning handle something. It cracks everyone up when I use it. I remember my great aunt (when I was playing with the chicks in her coop), saying, "Don't "knoatch" the peeps". Picking up a pet and hugging them (against their will) was "knoatching" them. Also, picking up a loaf of bread and squeezing it to see if it was fresh was "knoatching" it.

Another one is "rutch" (squiggle). I'll tell my grandson, don't "rutch" around. "Doppich" is clumsy. "Struvvely" is messy. These words always work their way into my vocabulary, and people look at me puzzled until I explain what I'm saying.

[aliasfinn]

May you be a long time in Heaven before the Devil knows you're gone.



Whenever one of us kids had a birthday, right after we blew out the candles the old lady would swat us in the arse for each year that we reached, and then an extra one saying " and one to grow on."
Another reason to want to stay young.

[WoundedSpirit]

From my husband who was a Kansas farm boy-

I'll holler at you later

I'll show him how the cow ate the cabbage

Like a runaway freight train

From one of my former bosses from Wisconsin-

I blow you no horn me

Come here once

[TashaPosh]

From Dr. Sam's site........"One thing is to have sight, another thing is to have vision". He doesn't really explain it BUT IMO he means "seeing the big picture" or not just looking at the obvious.......

I don't know how old the saying is.......

[AcresHomes44]

Never let your left hand know what you're right hand is doing
Translation: Don't let everyone know your business. Keep some things to yourself
Boo Boo The Fool-Don't know if this term is an old saying or just became popular, but Boo Boo The Fool is a term popularized by the black community to mean insulting someone's intelligence or trying to get over on someone

[Mrs. Skeffington]

Here's one we knew growing up (regarding table manners)..."Where's your Emily Post?" I think we got it from The Three Stooges (Moe used it to reprimand Curly), but Emily Post wrote a popular book on manners in the 1930's.. Spending the past 6 weeks in lockdown and umpteen meals with my young grandsons, I tried to correct their table manners (chewing with their mouths open, using their shirt instead of a napkin, eating with their fingers, etc.) It turned into a catch phrase with those two, but it's funny when we're at the table and the 3-year-old says, "Where's your Elly Post?" to his older brother.