So funny, I just heard a talking head say “all hat and no cow” on Stephanopolous‘s show! Right after the Chicagoan joked tongue-in-cheek about their traditional saying. “That dog don’t hunt.” (No politics intended here, just the phraseology coincidence.)

Along the lines of Jim's: "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about." :(

Thanks for that explanation about beggars and horses, Annie. I knew the gist of it, but never could figure out why beggars were singled out. Now I see.

An English friend taught me their version of, All hat and no cattle, which I like a lot.

Empty pots make the most noise.

My mother would express indignation about something she found disagreeable by using a Ukrainian phrase that translated means "What else would there be!" Although I don't speak the language, I use those words now in affectionate memory.

Stacy, my father had a Ukrainian employee who’d say “what you can do?” for “what can ya do?“ We all adopted it.

Whenever my mom opened the back door to let the dog out, my dad would say "hurry up, you're heating up all of Mt. Airy" which is where we lived.

Most of the saying above were ones I grew up with. It was my parents and friends' parents saying those things though. My grandparents had all passed by the time I was born.

One more! My Great Grandmother used to say "Apple cider apple cider, makes your smile grow wide and your belly grow wider!"

Fun topic!

I see many aphorisms that our family used too, and a number that are new to me as well 🙂

My dad was the one who had a lot of favorites. These are a few I recall that I haven't seen above:

'Your father wasn't a glazier (glassmaker)' - said when someone was blocking his view of the TV.

'Give 'em enough rope and they'll hang themselves' - meaning let people fail.

'When you hit the white stuff, it's the brains' - when someone was picking their nose.

'Hoist with their own petard' - when someone's plan backfired.

'I'm at the end of my rope!' - mostly to us kids when we were driving him crazy.

'I'm so tired I can't see straight' - he said this a lot!

And my mom likes to repeat these sayings from my dad's mom, her MIL:

'Eat what you can and what you can't we'll can' - said at a big meal.

'There's no accounting for taste, said the man as he kissed the cow'

And my interpretation of the ' if wishes were horses' saying is that there are so many wishes in the world, that if they were all horses, there would be plenty of horses for everybody, even beggars.

And yes, 'a watched pot never boils' equals 'stop hovering' 😉

I enjoy using old & new aphorisms, and do so as often as possible. I even have a Dictionary of Phrase & Fable that was my father's.

Carol, our dad said “you make a better door than a window”, kind of like “not a glazier”.

I love all the memories this is conjuring up.

My mother, born in 1904, had a lot of funny sayings.

Not from my mother, but in response to Lars, Hold her Newt...

I always heard "Hold her Newt, she's gonna buck!"

If you asked my mother if she was ready, she would say, "I'm Reddy's calf."

If you said, "What for?". She would say, "What fur? Cat fur to make kitten britches."

If she wanted you to move over, she would say, "you would make a better door than a window" only she pronounced it win-der.

If she didn't know someone you were talking about...she would say, "I wouldn't know him from Adam's off ox.". (I think that meant the ox on the right side of a team....called the off side. The one on the left is the near side.)

If she heard me whistling, she would say

"Whistling girls and crowing hens, always come to some bad end.". Meaning it wasn't ladylike. Also when a hen gets old and stops laying eggs, their hormones change and they will start to crow...altho not exactly like a rooster. That means they are destined for the stew pot.

I made up some of my own because the Danish ones never really translated very well. There was one about a cow and somehow I got that mixed up in my mind with the stitch one so I'd say my made up one and still do. Maybe because it's more concrete in my mind?

A stitch now saves the cow.

My interpretation of a watched pot never boils was always that the pot doesn't need you to help it to boil so go do something else and come back and check on it. Now I use a timer because my induction stove is so quick. I barely turn around to get something out of the fridge and it is time to put the pasta or whatever in the boiling water.

Can’t turn a sow’s ear into silk, engaged in hopeless task.

I know that one as "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

ETA, I just thought of one that was a favorite of my mother's: Il faut souffrir pour être belle, i.e. One must suffer in order to be beautiful. Very lousy advice, if you ask me!

carolb -- may I congratulate you on having Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable? Many years ago, I bought one at a library book sale and it has been a delight. I once vowed to read the entire book, but haven't yet -- now that the library is closed, I shall endeavor to amuse and educate myself once again. Thank you for the reminder!!

As they occur to me, I'll post:

Mom: "You have to eat a pound of dirt before you die". She meant if you have grit in your food it's not all that bad, you can eat some of it. I took it to mean fine to eat, but please don't let me get near a pound of it, because I don't want to die!

Mom: "Think of all the starving children in India". Said when I didn't want to clean my plate. At a very young age, I turned to her in all true seriousness - I really meant it - and said something to the effect of: "Can we mail this to them, please?" That statement of hers for some reason disappeared after that.

Heard in a courtroom during cross examination: “So, you didn’t see him chew it, you just saw him spit it out.” “Are you going to fish or cut bait?”

Either parent, upon getting their first car with Air Conditioning: "Roll up your window, we're not air conditioning Pennsylvania (or whatever state it was)." Unfortunately both my parents smoked heavily, and i was trying to ... breathe.

Hold your horses. I did get this one... Just calm down.

I am not certain which parent said it (maybe both?) but A watched pot never boils. I probably had that budding scientist in me at that time, so I took it upon myself one evening (when I wasn't particularly hungry, just in case) to watch a pot heat up and all. It boiled, and I was watching it. Hypothesis disproven!

@ bpath, I have read quite a bit of it, and what's funny about that dictionary is that a lot of the more common phrases we use often (and many shared here) are not in there, while many I find uncommon are. I think it's because they are derived from classical literature & academia and also England & Europe.

The clean plate example made me remember another one. If I didn't like something on the plate, Dad would say "eat it, it'll make your hair curly." I already had kinky curly hair, so that was no motivation.

I’m Enjoying this thread and just wrote a long post that disappeared. So I will just list my sayings.

Dad: you’re holding up the vinegar works.

they treat me like a mushroom.

Finish your dinner. Children in China are starving.

Mom: a blind man on a galloping horse wouldn’t notice.

He can go pound sand in his ear.

He doesn’t have a dog in this race.

Sheep in lamb‘s clothing.

From work:

Never met a conflict of interest I didn’t like.

is this the hill we want to die on?

Keep your eye on the prize.

He needs a come to Jesus meeting.

DH: He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Or, half a bubble off.

ETA. You’re preaching to the choir

A few from my paternal grandmother have just come to mind:

Don't meet trouble halfway (don't worry about things that haven't happened)

Chin up and soldier on.

In for a penny, in for a pound

Here's one I heard in San Francisco: "It's not pretty being easy."

A friend who was giving a Thanksgiving dinner party in Los Angeles found a half-drunk bottle of beer and said, "Who left this beer? Don't you know there are sober children in India?"

My mother was full of sayings. The one I found most funny was "tight as Dick's hatband" apparently Dick had a swelled head.

For those who dont know Rhubarb was a medicine made from Rhubarb root and I gather it tasted terrible. How it came to mean sass is I suppose one of those mysteries.

Here’s one of my favs. “Looks might get you in the door but they won’t keep you in the room.”

People in hell want ice water too.

Take all you want, but eat what you take.

Your face will freeze that way.

Function, our father said that ”take all you want, but eat all you take” was on a sign of the enlisted men’s mess on his transport ship to the Philippines in 1945. At our table, it was usually accompanied by “your eyes were bigger than your stomach”, followed Mom’s “Don‘t you know there are children starving in China/Africa/India?”

DH, on the other hand, was #6 of 7, but mostly boys. I think he heard instead, “save some for your sisters” lol.

Bpath, it very well could of come from a troop ship. My father was on a troop ship during WWII heading to the Philippines. I just assumed it was from the depression so you didn't waste food.

The nuns at school use to say the children in china. So when the nuns weren't looking we use to put the food we didn't like in our empty milk cartons.

When we were playing dominoes and someone asked the score Daddy would name the losing one and say that he/she were "sucking the hind tit." I think that was because the rear teats in animals have the less milk. I was young and that embarrassed me.

A nonsensical saying my mother knew: "Peaches, peaches. Someone's coming with a hole in his britches." This phrase was spoken with a sing-song cadence. This may have come from her time as a young child (ca 1910), or her mother's (ca 1870). Back then a ripped seam in the seat of your pants was a common failure in boy's wear, especially if the seam was hand sewn or made with non-locking stitches. It was a point of wear for a horseman riding many miles in the saddle. Sometimes the wearer was not aware of the gap and it was an item of ridicule. Also, it could have referred to a worn garment having holes at the knees, usually from children spending time on their knees while playing. The actual source of this saying has been lost to antiquity and was used by children who liked its cadence. (Growing up 100 years ago, children used a variety of devices to amuse themselves and annoy the adults.)

"He deals from the bottom of the deck" meaning he is a onerous person or one who cheats and lies.

"Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning; Red sky at night, sailor's delight." Refers to weather conditions; An old forecasting adage.

"There's light at the end of the tunnel.": Things appear bleak at the moment, but if we keep plugging along, the situation will improve.

"A green cloud spells trouble." During summer, a farmer looking at an approaching rain cloud, if he saw a greenish coloration near the bottom of the cloud, he'd see that as a sign of of possible hail in the cloud.

"All that glitters is not gold." This comes from confusing pyrite (Iron sulfide) as gold. Pyrite is a common mineral with a brassy color. A neophyte panning for gold and spying pyrite flakes could mistake it for gold and become very excited. A miner with larcenous intentions and having a non-productive mine might 'salt' his claim with pyrite in an attempt to sell a worthless property to the uninitiated. This phrase was often told by parents to their children that the wealth they see in someone else may be faked, or that a supposed possession would be the best thing to have when it would not. Be satisfied with the good things that you have.

Expressions at work:

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater....meaning don't destroy the whole process, but keep what's good.

We were in corporate so people who went to the businesses where actual work got done and bought what the business managers told them that disagreed with corporate's directives were said to have "gone native."

"Don't let it fester." In other words, don't try to deal with a problem or cover it up but bring it out into the open so we can throw adequate resources at it to fix it. And every time someone said that phrase, I would picture Uncle Fester.

And another favorite expression because it works so well is, "Got it." Used when people won't shut up about something and keep repeating themselves....it's really helpful to get them to stop.

MIL's parents came to Minnesota from Denmark. This was said in resignation: "Bread and beer, bread and beer. If I'd not married, I wouldn't be here."

Not a saying, but another amusing quote from MIL, regarding a sister-in-law: "She was a lot more fun before she got religion."

Instead of the starving children saying, my mother would say, when I didn't want to eat something, "A little bird would like to have that."

I remember when I bought my first Quarter Horse, for $1200, which was a lot more money in 1967....my dad said "when two fools met"...meaning the fool who asked that amount and the fool (me) who paid it.

He also said "a fool and their money, soon parted". Didn't hurt my feelings. I loved that horse. One of the best horses I've ever owned.

“Mom used to say, "tough tittie but you got to chew it," meaning, life is hard so deal with it.”

lol, my mom said...tough tittie but the milks still good....meaning the same as Annie’s

my favorite all time expression and I say it now (from my mother-in-law).... “Many hands make light work“.

My Scottish dad used to say "If I don't see you through the week, I'll see you through the window." He also had us all hold up our glasses at every meal and say "Cheers". Now my great grandson and I are carrying on the tradition. He's four. He even has the kids at preschool doing it.

Yaya, my dh used to do that with our kids when they were younger, and as they aged to middle school we would give them a sip of wine so they wouldn't be as excited to drink it in high school and beyond. It worked.

My parents were older so they said a lot of old-fashioned things, but I can't remember any right now! I do miss hearing my mom talk.

A person on this site I corresponded with for awhile, (she left,) used to end out chats by telling me it was time to kill some rats. She said her mother used this saying.

"One Hand Washes the Other." "A fool and his money are soon parted." "Beggars can't be choosy." "If it isn't broke, don't fix it." "Don't rub salt into the wound."

My Irish mother had so many sayings, I can't remember them all. When someone above writes one, I remember her saying it. I think she said them all!

Jane

A favorite uncle often said, "see you 'round if I don't see you square" and "see you in the funny papers."

our family is a bunch of hard workers, not philosophers ....

so I got a philosophy degree ...

This: Cooler heads prevail

Pity the poor snake who does not have a pit to hiss in.

jemdandy, that's not quite the way I heard it, lol. Another one my mom would occasionally use: Get off your high horse. Also, Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

Here's another my father would say (I think), "I wouldn't wear that to a dog fight." Of course we would reply, "Good; we're not going to a dog fight."
At lot of things he said really did not make sense to me.

A few more:

“No good deed goes unpunished.” “Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.” We said this generally during negotiations. “Careful what you wish for.” Make sure you understand the possible ramifications of your ask.

my grandparents phrase describing poverty: "They don't have two nickels to rub together."

I'll throw in some regulars from Judge Judy:

If you tell the truth, you don't need a good memory.

If it doesn't make sense, it's not true.

You know how you can tell when a teenager is lying? Their lips are moving.

They don't keep me here 'cause I'm gorgeous, they keep me here 'cause I'm smart.

God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.

Every morning when my father left for work he said "I'm off -- like a herd of turtles".

I love the "Hold her, Newt . . . "

These are fun to read. There are lots of sayings in my family but I can't recall them right now except for my Mom always saying whenever anyone called a ship a boat haha and now I say it too, "You can put a boat on a ship but you can't put a ship on a boat" We live near the river so we always heard that. My Great Grandma had some good sayings. When my brain starts working sometime today, maybe after coffee I will post some more.

Norar - my father always said “we’re off like a herd of turtles.” No matter how many times I heard it it always made me laugh. Thanks for reminding me of that one.

Those Judge Judy quotes are some of the worst - I disagree with all of them. No wonder I can't stand her. A friend of mine was asked to be on her show because he was suing his contractor, and he refused, even though it would have meant more money for him.