Watched a terrible movie from the 80s on Rifftrax last night, R.O.T.O.R.
One guy says to his girlfriend, “You look like your eyes are looking out of the same hole”. I guess it meant she looked terribly worn out frazzled? It was a new one on me.
I always remember the part in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when she starts a sentence with “By the way…” and her grandma looks horrified and immediately gets on her knees and they all start praying. Since Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and “by the way” sounds like it’s taking His name in vain.
My mom would say a hard head makes a soft behind, which is probably some southern saying. I knew it meant that being stubborn would come back to bite you, but as a kid I still puzzled over it; did it mean you’d fail and fall on your butt, tenderizing it? Was it about spanking?
As I understand it, when you “box” someone’s ears, you hold your palms facing their ears and then bring your hands together suddenly and with force. Like clapping your hands but their head was in the way. It can rupture someone’s eardrums.
I’m literal-minded too and for “going over it with a fine tooth comb” I pictured a squad of detectives literally scraping through my house with black hair combs.
I was a very literal-minded child. I remember driving through Kentucky and my father had been talking about “blue grass” and I kept looking for it. I wanted blue grass.
Not to mention my obsession with “hidden drives.” I thought they were hidden like in the Green Hornet. :smack:
My dad blamed his flatulence on a “barking spider”.
If I ever complained about the char on food, my mom would respond with “It’s seasoning. Eat it anyway.” That’s a common refrain now anytime something isn’t palatable or well cooked.
Any injured extremity? Mom would console me with “too far from your heart to die.” Apparently, the heart is the only vital organ I had to worry about.
Whenever I asked my mom to hand me something that I could easily have gotten myself, she’d reply, “you’re big, fat n’ ugly enough to get it yourself.” You may think that was a somewhat mean-spirited thing for a mother to say to her 6-year old child, but she said it affectionately and I accepted it as such.
And, though Mom wasn’t raised in London’s East-end, she had the cockney accentand rhyming slang down pat.
I miss my mom.
I miss my dad, too, but he wasn’t so much into saying odd things as he was asigning nicknames to family members (e.g. he called me “Bunky” or “Bee” and Mom was “Stinky”–though, she didn’t really stink). She called Dad, “Butch”, though he wasn’t a lesbian.
I’m literal-minded too and for “going over it with a fine tooth comb” I pictured a squad of detectives literally scraping through my house with black hair combs.