Darn I meant Energizer- what a Maroon!
Around here, “schwag” refers specifically to low-grade marijuana: “We cashed all the dank bud, but I’ve still got some schwag.” (See * shake.)*
I might be misusing “cashed;” I’m not actually a stoner myself.
I say “the hell with it” (as opposed to “to hell with it”) but I’m not sure which one my father uses so if I learned it from him then it doesn’t count.
I also say “sholy hit!” Yup, that’s from when I wasn’t allowed to cuss. 
Reminds me. I also say “sursee” for a small gift or surprise. I got this from my mother, who, in turn, got it from her college roommate. It was apparently baby-talk for “surprise”.
If something is futile, frustrating, or inevitably not going to work, I say:
“File this under ‘H’ for ‘Happen, comma, not gonna.’”
Which has been shortened to “File under H” or “Happen, not gonna.”
A lot of my friends have picked up on this expression of pessimism and started using it.
I also say “Swell,” “Aces,” and “Jake” for things that are good, and all sandwiches are “sammiches.”
My Dad has a pretty low-key Maine accent, as ME accents go. But there are some words that really give it away. One of them is “fork”, which comes out sounding like “fawk”. “Gimme a fawk.” “I got a knife, but I need a fawk.” “When you get a fawk, is it supposed to be on the left, or on the right?” Hoooo-boy, don’t that tickly my non-ME friends when they first hear it. Yessah!
So now my wife and I use fucks to eat with. “Hey, hon, I want a fuck on the table. Right next to the knife.” “This fuck is too short, I need a longer one.” “Why are some fucks three-pronged, but others are four-pronged?” “Well, I can’t very well eat this without a fuck!”
I use **froufrou ** when referencing my mother’s ultra-victorian style of home decoration. The proper way of saying it is in the “Homer Simpson ‘fairy voice’”. Mom thought I was making it up until she heard the term used on a sitcom. I have no clue where I had picked it up. It’s in the dictionary.
I also use hotsy-totsy to describe something that’s fancy in a self-serving way. I picked this one up from an oboist from Cleveland, so I guess the term isn’t used much here in the south.
“Let’s not use the house sauce tonight” is another phrase I picked up from said oboist, who in turn was given the phrase by the famous former conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell. I generally say I’ve “laid the house sauce on a litle thick tonight” when I get too schmaltzy at a gig (even when schmaltz is called for).
Schmaltz. I guess that’s another one!
My father has an amusing phrase he’s trying desperately to get into the lcoal lingo - he constantly refers to catsup as “mother’s gravy” whenever we go out to eat. I just smile and tip the waiter extra.
“Crap on a stick!”
“Sweat on a donkey’s anus!”
“Just for the halibut.”
And, adopted from my father…
“Holy cheese wax!”
Anyhoo…
I had a friend who used to say “Holy sheep dip!” At the time I first heard him say that, I had no idea what a sheep dip was, and as he was one of the “cooler” kids, I didn’t dare ask in case my ignorance made me look like a dork. I just laughed along and said it myself…even made variations “Holy freakin’ sheep dip!”
Finally I got cocky enough that I somehow let people know I was under the impression “sheep dip” must have something to do with sodomizing farm animals. “It’s a bath for sheep, you idiot!” was the inevitable correction. Great. So now, instead of looking like a dork, I got the reputation for being “the guy with bestiality on the brain.” We’d do training runs past farms, and I’d be regaled with comments like “Whoah Loopdog! Hey Loopster! Time for a little SHEEP DIP!”
(This story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent of ever sodomizing farm animals or even entertaining the idea…ever. I mean that. Never happened. So get off it, already, enough’s enough.)
I occasionally use cockywobble to describe something crooked or askew – learned it from my mom, and was surprised to get strange looks from people when I said it. (I have no idea where it comes from.)
I’ve also picked up a lot of weird stuff on the Internet that people offline look at me oddly for saying…
I’m big on saying “Man oh Manischewitz,” but I believe I learned it from Kevin Smith movies. I also refer to the grocery store as the Grocadero, for no apparent reason. Laundrette instead of laundromat. Fridgidaire instead of refrigerator.
I get really creative while cursing, but not intentionally - I just jam words together if I’m especially frustrated. My favorite is “Holy Mother of Fuck!”
I’ve also used terms from the pro wrestling industry in everyday life - bump, face, heat, heel, pop…
One that I use is ‘Mark it on the ice.’ for a debt that does not have to be repaid - as in, the money’s a gift.
Someone asks to borrow a dollar to get a soda, and I give them a dollar, they’ll usually say ‘I’ll pay you back.’
Response is ‘Mark it on the ice.’
Oh, I do this all the time! Add to your list: mark (out), smark, work, shoot, angle, push, job/jobber, etc.
Since I am not allowed to curse in front of the SO’s little ones, I have to make them up. (Curses, not little ones.) At dinner a few months ago, I had a lovely appetizer of shrimp with a sort of garlic dressing. I looked up from my plate and said, “These are great garlicky shrimp!” Hence, a curse phrase was born.
My mother used to say “Bi-cuspid!” in the same voice you would use to say “Eureka”.
I also enjoy saying Great googly moogly, which is close to great garlicky shrimp, but needs to be said like Willie the Groundskeeper.
Hmmm…here’s a few:
“I’d rather eat glass”
“I’d rather sandpaper a bobcat’s ass in a phone booth”
“Where am I, Planet Spengo?” (a reference to Mom and Dad Save the World…Planet Spengo, the planet of idiots)
And of course, the ever-popular “Holy schmengies!” and “Holy cardboard, Batman!”
Sometimes when somebody says something that bugs me, I’ll say “Fuck You!”
Never heard anyone else say that…
Hey I do that too! In addition to HMoF I also say “son of a hell” and “bastard piss.”
Me too.
I also often use old words like hoo-ha, kerfuffle or discombobbled.
Jerk water and dick weed are two I use for any idiots I come across. I have no idea where I picked them up but have never heard anyone else use them.
I also call catalogues, cattle dogs, picked up from an old TV add.
FCM, i’m rather sure that “razzlefrazzin razsassis” (well, close) was one of a cartoon character sidekick’s stock lines, for expressing disgruntlement. now whether it was “Douuuglas” the hunting dog, or Muttley, that’s obscured by the mists of time… (or the early '60s, whichever is more distant to you.)
Annie X-Mas, “in the wrong church” sounds like an abbreviated version of “in the wrong church, right pew”, or variously “in the right church, wrong pew”.
GrizzRich, there was indeed a long-ago commercial (radio, TV or maybe both) touting Manischewietz wine. the last line of the jingle was “Man-o-Manischewietz, what a wine.” and i think i recall the last voice-over line before the jingle as being “Man-o-man-o-Manischewietz.”
simply_cats, i think “goings on” was a regionalism that died away. i’m originally from Ohio, so maybe it was a Midwest thing.
ggurl… i plead the Fifth. it was a long time ago. but it was usually the present-future tense (or maybe i was just tense), i.e., “I’ll be dipped…” – which quickly was abbreviated to simply “I’ll be dipped”, due to parental ire.
lightingtool, i believe “mook” is actually old ('30s?) slang, referring to some expendible guy or less-than-brilliant member of a gang.
LeeshaJoy, “futzing” is indeed standard usage.
Morgyn, your “kiss a pig” sets up a faint resonance, but i can’t pin down any particular person or setting when it was said. strange…
Mausmagill, you’re not the only one to substitute “Frick” for less acceptable F-words. although i’ve passed beyond that now; it became “Frigate” (or “Frig it”, depending on my mood) for a while. however, after reading these boards for the last year or so, i unfortunately seem to have progressed all the way to full-frontal F-ing out loud. :: sigh ::
GraphicsGal, i can’t shake the feeling that “quelle frommage” is a pickup from either a cartoon or a Muppets somethingorother.
Big Bad Voodoo Lou, “swell”, “aces” and “Jake” are old recycles also. somewhere between early 20th century to the '30s, i’d guess. but i DO want to steal your “file under H” line… that had me laughing hysterically.
Sangre Azul, were you ever a 3 Stooges fan? they’ve used “hotsy-totsy” (as a mummy’s name, no less) in at least one of their movies. the meaning of the term is pretty clear from the usage even then. oh… and, uh, “schmaltz” is a real term. i believe it’s Yiddish. it literally is chicken fat, but the implied meaning is a surfeit of richness applied to something, i.e., “too much schmaltz”.
Beauty Personified, either you’re very influential, or you’ve been influenced. i started seeing “crap on a stick” in mail-list correspondence at least some 5 years ago.
ok, now that i’ve gone through full thread-killer mode, these are my personal creations:
early-years’ cussing get-around – “hell’s bells and cockleshells”
if i’m currently EXTRAORDINARYILY peeved with someone/thing: “you Motherless…” (works best for anyone following a particular Goddess theosophy)
hmm. i thought i was more creative than that. razzlesnatz.