# Help with old timey phrase. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 23, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361 "2015-11-23T15:06:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elrikk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@Elrikk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elrikk)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/1 "2015-11-23T15:06:06Z")
I am a big fan of W.C. Fields and was recently watching “You’re telling me” (1934) on YouTube. Around (45:34) Sam Brisbee (Fields), speaking to Princess Lescaboura, mutters the phrase “She rolls off my knife” about the haughty Mrs. Murchison. It was such an odd phrase I paused the movie and ran it thru the googles machine, to my astonishment only one other mention comes up from a 1938 newspaper soap opera like story called “Two’s Company”. > **[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 08 Jan 1938, page Page 19](https://bklyn.newspapers.com/image/52627723/)** > > View the digital scanned newspaper from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle dated 08 Jan 1938, page Page 19. It didn’t give me any context either, so I called my authority on all things ancient…my 90 year old mother who thank God still has mind of a 17 year old. She had never heard of it. So, now I turn to you Cecil to solve this mystery. Can you help. Thanks, Elrikk ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/2 "2015-11-23T15:14:11Z")
I’ve never come across this before, but if you try googling without the pronoun, several other usages come up, all suggesting it’s used to mean someone’s indifferent to whatever it is, or that the point of it escapes them. I suppose it might be connected to the old comic idea about trying to eat peas with a knife? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/3 "2015-11-23T15:43:18Z")
I am sure it refers to eating peas with a knife and means something like - hard to control/hard to keep. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/4 "2015-11-23T15:56:55Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I am sure it refers to eating peas with a knife That was my initial thought too. I eat my peas with honey; I’ve done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, But it keeps them on the knife. (Anonymous, and therefore postable in full; text from [here](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171639).) ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/5 "2015-11-23T16:05:42Z")
According to **Eve** of SDMB it means [something that is found uninteresting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2050520&postcount=46): > [@](#): > > Oooh, I also just remembered—“that rolls off my knife,” for something that disinterests me. [As in](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14476440&postcount=4): > [@](#): > > I am not going to get into the whole “what is and isn’t art” debate, but will tell you Picasso rolls off my knife, too. I like some of his earliest stuff, but anything after World War One you can keep. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/6 "2015-11-23T20:05:23Z")
This board is amazing sometimes. So fun, and now I know a new oldfashioned phrase. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/7 "2015-11-23T22:22:11Z")
I think it’s something like “it rolls off me like water off a duck’s back.” ---
**Author:** ![Bert\_Nobbins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@Bert\_Nobbins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bert_Nobbins)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/8 "2015-11-24T17:30:19Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > I think it’s something like “it rolls off me like water off a duck’s back.” An American lady I knew used to say ‘That rolls off my back like a wet duck’. Which I think has a pleasant ring to it. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/9 "2015-11-24T20:21:53Z")
That would be a sight to see. ---
**Author:** ![Elrikk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@Elrikk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elrikk)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/10 "2015-11-25T20:57:53Z")
Thanks for all the replys, I think from the context we can all agree on the meaning. I think he was using it in a sarcastic way by saying “she doesn’t bother me”…but really meaning I’d like to cut her throat…lol. What I’m interested in is the origins of the phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b487fb/32.png) [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-old-timey-phrase/738361/11 "2015-11-25T21:17:43Z")
Perhaps it’s similar to pushing food around on a plate rather than eating it.