Phrases you'd think people would know

[Mother]

Recently my youngest son asked me to compile a list of sayings that I heard as a kid from my Dad and Grandma, who were both country folk from the Ozarks of Arkansas. This is the list of phrases from about 1948 to 1960.

I heard most of these from my mother when I was a child, and I still use some of them. But my mother’s family was from southern Ohio, and never set foot in Arkansas.

Not long ago I used the expression, “can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” to someone in their 20s. She looked at me like I’d just arrived in a spaceship.

[AppallingGael]

@olivesmarch4th

My husband was grading statistics essays, and he found the construction, ‘‘From the gecko, we can see…’’

It took him a minute to figure out the author meant, ‘‘from the get-go.’’

From the gecko? Really?

I remember that one from the eggcorn database (just linked to the opening page, but it’s in there somewhere).

[Springtime_for_Spacers]

[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:157, topic:510178”]

I’ve always thought of “caught short” as meaning left unprepared in a general way, I hadn’t been aware of the specific pregnancy angle.
[/QUOTE]

I’m in the UK and I know “caught short” as meaning needing to use the loo rather badly in the absence of a suitable toilet as in “I was caught short and had to find a bush to go behind.”

[Spice_Weasel]

@AppallingGael

I remember that one from the eggcorn database (just linked to the opening page, but it’s in there somewhere).

Ok, that site is hilarious. ‘‘Sarah Palin and her elk…’’