When two people get along really well, I say they get on “like a house on fire.”
No one else seem to know what I mean when I say it, so I’m thinking its rare. That being said, I learned it from my mother, who is known for such malapropisms as
“Don’t kick a gift horse in the mouth” and
“shooting up a creek without a paddle.”
(Only, not shooting. I haven’t figured out spoiler windows yet, and I think my posts are doomed to be G-rated for the rest of my life.)
And what was half-an-hour in when I turned on the TV this evening, just after reading this? Of course I had to watch the whole thing to re-remember how it was used: “The figures have gone a bit…(pause)…squiffy since you left.” Perfect example
What’s neat is that I can see the scene clearly before my eyes. It was in the 70’s and I went to lunch with a couple of the supervisors on my shift, and when the waitress arrived to take our orders, one of the guys, named Ed, said, “Naw, honey, just bring me a big old group of water.”
Said when things haven’t yet gone wrong but people are acting obliviously foolish.
Taken from one of my favorite films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Spoilered for a bit of naughty language:
[spoiler]WINSTON: What are you carrying, Willy?
WILLY: Er, fertilizer.
WINSTON: You went out six hours ago to buy a money counter and you come back carrying two bags of fertilizer. Alarm bells are ringing, Willy.
WILLY: We need fertilizer, Winston.
WINSTON: We also need a fucking money counter, William! We have to get the money out by Thursday and I’ll be buggered if I am counting it… and if you have to get your sodding fertilizer, couldn’t you be a little more subtle?
WILLY: What do you mean?
WINSTON: I mean we grow copious amounts of ganja, and you don’t look like your average hort-i-fucking-culturalist, that’s what I mean, Willy. [/spoiler]
I also get a lot of mileage out of “Chill, Winston!”, but you have to hear the delivery in the film to know how to say it just right ;D
The moment I first heard Dave Letterman say geshphincto, I was enthralled. (It’s basically a heavy-duty version of kaput. Synonyms are pak chooie and fbxrd, around this house anyway.)
My favorite mock-curse is “BLessed is the man who loves the Lord.” (Who can find the reference?)
The Army is full of neat phrases, many of which have entered common usage:
beacoup (From Vietnamese French for “a lot of”)
Long pole in the tent (the most important part of something)
Elbows and assholes (What you see when a person is running from you)
The should not have joined the Army if they can’t take a joke (Said after you shoot someone)
Go away (to die)
hardball (a paved road)
dirtball (a dirt road)
Ever since watching Tombstone, I’ve gotten to using the phrase “I’ll be yer Huckleberry…” (It took me a few days to realize just what I was saying though- the Tom Sawyer reference- I just thought it was a really neat way of talking/acting that Val Kilmer was doing).
My grandmother had some similar phrases, although used for situations that were poor-to-tolerable - ‘better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick’ and ‘better than a slap in the face with a wet lettuce/ dead fish’.
I’m also fond of ‘ten o’clock and no rabbits caught’ for when I’m not not getting on with, or even started on, a job. There’s also the related (bastardized) ‘fools and bairns shouldn’t see rabbits half-caught’, for when someone is giving advice on what you should do next, and they have either have no idea what they are talking about, or you are cranky because they are actually giving really good advice - you just don’t want to take it.
