Mike in Nicholasville, Kentucky, remembers that his grandfather sometimes accepted an invitation with Can’t dance, and too wet to plow meaning that he “might as well.” A longer version goes Can’t dance, never could sing, and it’s too wet to plow, and the idea is that if a field is too wet, it’s impossible to accomplish the work of plowing, so any alternative activity is welcome. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Can’t Dance, Never Could Sing, and Too Wet to Plow”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, it’s Mike Hayes from Nicholasville, Kentucky.
Hey, Mike.
Welcome to the show. What’s up?
My grandfather, who lived with us most all of my life, had some odd sayings.
And one of them was, we would ask him, you know, granddaddy, do you want to go with us to, you know, the store or whatever?
He would say something like, might as well. Can’t dance. It’s too wet to plow.
At first I thought, well, that’s just something he’s come up with because I never heard anyone else say anything about it.
And then a lady I worked with said that she was just floored the other night because she was reading a novel, and there that saying was in the novel.
So apparently it’s not just my granddaddy’s saying.
Yeah, it’s a fairly well-known expression, and there are a number of variations on it.
The longer one that I know is, can’t dance, never could sing, and it’s too wet to plow.
Oh, that’s nice.
And it’s a way of saying might as well.
Yeah.
Just kind of agreeing to whatever’s been suggested.
And the shorter version, too wet to plow, is kind of the farmer’s lament, which is plowing.
Certainly before the mechanical era, was just one of those things that was almost never done.
And you can’t plow a wet field or shouldn’t do it because it’s hard on the man and hard on the plow and hard on the horse or the mule.
Yeah.
So you just don’t do it when it’s wet.
So what else are you going to do?
So what else are you going to do?
It must be a pretty old thing because my grandfather, he was born just before the Civil War.
Really?
He died when I was 14 in the late 60s.
Well, you know what’s funny is the earliest that I know about it is from 1960.
But I would love to find it older than that.
I’ve always suspected that it’s older than 1960.
I found it in a newspaper from then.
Yeah.
It just has the flavor of something much older than that, though, doesn’t it?
It just, that seems too recent, really, doesn’t it?
Yeah, she does.
Yeah, I think so.
So, yeah, so can’t dance, never could sing, and it’s too wet to plow.
Might as well.
Yep, might as well.
Some people use it, by the way, to say what’s next,
Which is if you’re just kind of sitting there, you finish the chores.
If all your responsibilities are done,
Everyone is kind of looking at each other, not knowing what else to do,
You just kind of say that or some variation of it.
It means now what are we going to do?
Yeah.
Oh, it makes sense.
So you might go back and shoot cans off the fence post.
Who knows?
Yeah.
Yeah, I love it.
Mike, thank you so much for sharing these family memories with us.
If you have any more, give us a call.
Thanks, Mike.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Take care.
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