# Phrases your (grand)parents used **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245 "2009-07-25T20:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/141 "2019-03-18T22:31:47Z")
Well, what have we learned today, class? When arranging a date, never use the phrase “Quarter of” because there’s a good chance you’ll miss each other by half an hour… I listen to a lot of Brit-Lit audiobooks, read by narrators beautifully intoning the Queen’s English. So I often hear \*“ **half five** ” \*or its ilk. I actually had to look it up… it’s 5:30. The most confusing I’ve come across was “I’ve taken my time here and finally finished reading the book at _ **half seven in the afternoon** _ the next day. Simply because every little detail was of extreme importance.” Huh, I googled it and found a review of a Barcelona Boat Party: “After all, they run from half five until _ **half seven in the afternoon** ,_ have some of Barcelona’s best DJs playing on board and the booze is as free flowing as the water you sail upon…” How the hell is 7:30 pm “afternoon”? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/142 "2019-03-19T06:51:24Z")
By being at least one and a half hour before dinnertime. Now, if you asked me “how is 7:30 am ‘afternoon’”, that I’d agree it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/143 "2019-03-19T06:55:53Z")
When my father had to excuse himself to go urinate, he always said “I’ll be back in two shakes.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/144 "2019-03-19T13:08:01Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > One from my paternal grandmother that I’ve had people tell me they learned from her: “is somebody bleeding?” > My family was usually the biggest group of kids in that pool club, so it wasn’t unusual for other kids to join in. Often us olders would be shepherding two dozen to thirty little ones, some pre-verbal, some that we didn’t know who they belonged to… In any case, whenever any of us went to our grown-ups in a hurry and tried to interrupt, Abuelita would ask “is somebody bleeding?” > “Uh… no.” > “Then it is not urgent. You stand there and wait for us to finish the conversation we’re already having.” I would think that using that phrase _at a pool club_ could be dangerous, if you run into literal-minded kids who know that their drowning buddy is not _bleeding_. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/145 "2019-03-19T18:40:41Z")
Two of my mother’s expressions I find myself using from time to time: “Use your head for something besides a hatrack!” “It’s colder than a brass monkey!” (Years later, she confided that the entire phrase was “than the balls of a brass monkey.” She was a lady of the old school, don’t ya know…) ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/146 "2019-03-23T17:29:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > My mother still called the refrigerator the icebox… My grandparents always called it that. Curious thing is that I was too young to know what “the icebox” literally meant, and by extension I had no idea the term was an anachronism. In turn, until I was 10 or 12 years old, I just thought “icebox” was just another term for a refrigerator. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/147 "2019-03-23T17:39:57Z")
I’d get banned if I posted phrases my grandparents used. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/148 "2019-03-23T20:36:35Z")
Saw the topic of this (zombie) thread and immediately thought of my mother, who would say, “That’s much milder.” She meant that something was better or fixed. Straighten a picture…“Much milder!” I think it came from her New England background. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/149 "2019-03-23T20:47:36Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > My grandparents always called it that. Curious thing is that I was too young to know what “the icebox” literally meant, and by extension I had no idea the term was an anachronism. In turn, until I was 10 or 12 years old, I just thought “icebox” was just another term for a refrigerator. Same here. I didn’t realize the fact that the Kramdens on _The Honeymooners_ still had an icebox in 1955 meant that they were poor. We and everyone we knew already had a refrigerator by then time (not that we were well off ourselves.) ---
**Author:** ![phxjcc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phxjcc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phxjcc)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/150 "2019-03-23T20:57:47Z")
Queer as Dick’s hatband. As in odd or not normal, nothing to do with sexual orientation. ETA: I have no idea of who this Dick is. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/151 "2019-03-23T21:55:34Z")
There’s a whole lot of guessing about Dick’s hatband on the internet; in my opinion, it’s really Nick as in the devil. But a lot of people think otherwise. Short answer: no one knows. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245/152 "2019-03-23T22:33:02Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > …Me: Why is it called that? > Him: They hadda call it something so they called it Hadacol (an actual product so I think he got this from the radio or something) > … [Hadacol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadacol)was a patent medicine in the 1940s with a 12% alcohol content. One of my late husband’s expressions (he would have been 80 this year) was, when someone was confused, “He doesn’t know whether to shit or go blind.” He would also say when someone was happy, "He’s shickled titless.: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-your-grand-parents-used/504245.md?page=7)