In Hebrew, there’s an expression: “3rd time ice cream” - which is, admittedly, rather strange. It’s recited when one unexpectedly encounters a person for the second time within a short period
A colleague told me today that this expression is derived from an English phrase “3rd time I’ll scream”, and he heard it from an American friend. However, googling the phrase didn’t turn any relevant results.
So - is it an English expression?
Thanks!
I can’t find any reference to it online in English, but it’s commonly known that “I scream” and “ice cream” could make a pun. There’s a 1927 song called “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream.” I’ve never heard the song before, but I heard the phrase long ago:
I’m an American and have never heard anyone say “third time I’ll scream.” That particular phrasing seems awkward enough that it seems unlikely as an expression. People do say things like “If that phone rings one more time then I’ll scream” in reference to some recurring annoyance, but you wouldn’t say that about unexpectedly encountering someone unless you disliked them. As Wendell Wagner says, “I scream”/“ice cream” is a fairly well-known pun, but I’ve never heard it used in the context of “If this annoying thing happens again then ice cream.”
I haven’t heard that particular expression, but I have heard of threats of screaming as a means of deterrent in TV and movies. Like if the boorish clod (e.g. Bluto) is making an unwanted pass at the young ingenue (e.g. Olive Oyl) she’ll say, “if you don’t stop, I’ll scream”, implying that the scream would attract the attention of many dashing men (e.g. Popeye, doped up with Spinach) to who the clod would then have to explain himself or face a beating.
I’d interpret “third time I’ll scream” in that light: A lighthearted version of, “you are obviously stalking me, and if you don’t leave me alone I’ll make a scene to draw everyone’s attention to that fact”. But again, I have never actually heard of the phrase being used.
Never come across it before…but I like it!
I’m British, and I never heard of it.
But the Hebrew word for ice cream is glida, which does not sound anything like “ice cream” or “I scream.”
No, Puzzler is saying that the phrase in Hebrew is “pa’am shlishi glida,” which translates in English to “third time ice cream.”
True.
A minor nitpick: It’s Pa’am Shlishit glida.
An Israeli friend was telling me about this expression recently, but I’d told him I’d never heard any native English speaker use the phrase “Third time I scream”. He insisted it was a real English expression (although I’ve lived my whole life in the US), but said maybe it was British. Did a bit of googling afterwards and found this:
In short, there is no such expression in American or British English, but Israelis think there is.
This sounds vaguely similar to “Jinx, buy me a Coke!”
I don’t know if this is an American thing only, but if two people say the same word at the same time one may exclaim “Jinx!” or “Jinx, buy me a Coke!” In folklore a jinx is a minor curse, and kids sometimes play a game where someone who has been “jinxed” in this way is “cursed” with being unable to speak again until some condition has been met. This is often someone else speaking the jinxed person’s name, but there’s a lot of variation as to the rules. Anyway, it’s fairly common for buying the other person a Coke to be either a way to break the jinx or the penalty for speaking before the jinx was broken. Adults don’t usually play this game*, but “Jinx!” and “Jinx, buy me a Coke!” are still used as expressions.
While this isn’t exactly the same as the “third time ice cream” thing, it reminded me of it because both involve two people unintentionally doing something at the same time and one owing the other a treat as a result.
*Although there’s an episode of the US version of The Office where Jim doesn’t speak for hours after Pam jinxes him.
Thanks everyone!
Punch me once, and I’ll say. Punch me twice, and I’ll yell. Punch me thrice I’ll scream!
It’s not unheard of for people to have bits of “Common Knowledge” about other cultures and languages that are patently false. One that got it’s own write-up by Cecil was how in Chinese the words for “Crisis” and “Opportunity” were the same word.
Similarly, many “ethnic” foods in the US that supposedly have their origin in foreign countries, like many of the things on a typical Chinese restaurant’s menu in the US (fun fact: they’re trying to sell food to Americans, not to Chinese people). In particular, Chinese Fortune Cookies, which are either from Nevada or California depending on which person you want to give credit for it to. Ditto for Mongolian Barbecue, which is neither one nor the other.