Bread and Butter Expression

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Suzette, and I’m calling from Lakeside area of San Diego, California.

Hello, Suzette. How are you?

I’m doing well.

Will you have a question for us today?

I sure do.

Well, my mother has always used all these words, and a couple of them have been like turkey tail or snatch you bald-headed.

Now, wait a minute, turkey tail?

We’ve talked about snatch you bald-headed.

I’m so angry I’m going to snatch you bald-headed.

I remember that.

But Suzette, what’s a turkey tail?

Well, she would just call, like she would call my son, a turkey tail.

Hey, come here, you little turkey tail.

I love that. I’ve never heard that. Have you, Grant?

I’ve never heard that.

Nice.

She’s from Texas.

Oh.

That explains a lot of weird behavior.

But is that what you’re calling about today, turkey tail?

No. The word that I’m calling about is bread and butter.

And it’s puzzled me all my growing years, and my siblings also.

It’s a game my mother used to play with us, somewhat of a game, but when we’d be walking side by side and, say, like a telephone pole would part our path and we would come back together, she would tap me on the shoulder and say bread and butter.

Huh.

And I would go along with it, and I’d ask, Mom, what does bread and butter mean?

She’d say, well, it just sticks together.

We stick together like bread and butter.

Very nice.

And I was just wondering if that’s just something that, you know, that she made up.

I’ve heard one other person, an older person, say, yeah, I know about bread and butter, but I don’t.

Can I be so indiscreet as to ask how old your mother is?

My mother is 78 years old, and she grew up in Texas.

You know, Suzette, this is so interesting because my first exposure to the phrase bread and butter used in exactly that way was in an old Looney Tunes cartoon.

I don’t know if you ever saw this one, or Grant, if you did, but I remember from my childhood there was this cartoon where these two tigers were pacing in a cage, going back and forth, back and forth, and every time they went around this pole in the middle of the cage, they said, bread and butter, bread and butter, bread and butter.

Only, I didn’t understand it for the longest time, and I thought they were saying, grandmother, grandmother, grandmother.

And I just thought that was the weirdest thing.

I think it traumatized me at an early age.

But then later I heard somebody say bread and butter when I was walking down the sidewalk with them.

And I think you’re right.

I think your mother is not pulling your leg here.

She’s not treating you like a turkey tail.

I think she’s exactly right that it’s the whole idea of the two of you being as inseparable as bread and butter once they’re stuck together.

That’s a really nice expression.

I like those.

I like those.

That reminds me of needles and pins.

Yeah, that’s another.

It’s similar.

Like when I was a kid, if two people said the same thing at the same time accidentally.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Well, you said jinx, you owe me a Coke.

Yeah.

And you could like seal the deal by doing hooking pinkies.

Oh.

So you think it might be like a superstition thing?

Like so she tapped me first and so she said it first?

It could just be a game without having any larger meaning.

Yeah, my mother was very playful with her words sometimes.

Fantastic.

Well, Suzette, this was a great call, and thank you for bringing this to mind.

I didn’t know the expression bread and butter.

This is really cool.

Yeah, I do it with my children all the time.

They look at me like, Strangler, what are you talking about?

Yeah, but they’ll do it with your grandchildren, won’t they?

Oh, I hope so.

Well, Suzette, thank you for your call.

Well, thank you.

I love the show.

Oh, yay.

Thanks a lot.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

You know, Grant, I was thinking about expressions in different languages to describe people who are inseparable like a couple.

And there are a couple that I really love in Spanish.

There’s one that translates as there’s inseparable as a fingernail in the dirt under it.

And then my other favorite one from Argentinian Spanish is there’s inseparable as butt and underwear.

Isn’t that sweet?

That’s so romantic.

Those two are as inseparable as butt and underwear.

If you have old family sayings or colloquial expressions or dialect terms that you’d like to hear, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or email us at words@waywordradio.org.