I Feel Like a Biscuit

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Matt calling from Beloit, Wisconsin.

So when I was in high school, my friends and I used to have this phrase that we would say, which was a variation one way or the other of, I feel like a biscuit, or you feel like a biscuit, or something like that.

And that phrase was generally meant to be, oh, you feel silly, you feel stupid, you made a mistake. Or, of course, as teenage boys, we might be teasing somebody else to call somebody out.

Yeah, I bet you feel like a biscuit now. And this is biscuit like the food, right?

Yeah. And after high school, I moved away from where I grew up on the East Coast.

And, you know, I left that group of friends. And of course, nobody else was ever saying that.

And it just kind of fell out of my vocabulary.

And then years later, my wife and I were talking about, oh, things from school or things from when we were kids or whatever.

And I said, did any of your friends ever say you feel like a biscuit?

And she just looked at me like I was crazy and said, no, that was just something that you and your stupid teenage boyfriends used to say.

Doubting the marriage.

And exactly, exactly.

And of course, you know, I wouldn’t mention it to friends growing up or over the years.

And of course, nobody had ever heard of it.

And I kind of forgot that conversation until just recently it came up again.

And so I did finally find a reference to it in the high professional journal called Urban Dictionary online.

And I’m sure you guys have written, I’m sure, published lots of articles there.

We hear your sarcasm.

And I did find a reference to it there.

But, of course, Urban Dictionary is Urban Dictionary.

So I was wondering.

Urban Dictionary is not reputable for those who wonder.

They even defined it as sort of how my friends and I did, was feeling silly or stupid or whatever.

But I can’t possibly remember where I first heard it.

Yeah.

And it seemed really super isolated.

And, of course, it makes no sense.

Yeah.

What year would this have been?

It would have been the early 90s for me.

Matt, let me tell you a couple theories.

So I don’t have more information for you except these theories of possibly where it came from, which is I think it might be the tail end of an old joke.

And in these old joke books, someone says they’re a little peckish or hungry and say, you know, I feel like a biscuit.

And somebody says, oh, you must be crackers.

Because what they mean is I feel like having or eating a biscuit.

But the other person takes it as is they feel like they are a biscuit.

They feel like they’re becoming a food item.

And then the joke is that they call them crackers, you know, another kind of food item.

And it’s a version of the old joke, which is somebody says, will you call me a cab?

Meaning, will you ring up the cab company and tell them to send a car over here?

But instead, the person says, poof, you’re a cab.

Yeah, definitely with a dad joke.

Yeah, so both of these just kind of reinterpret the verb.

I feel like a biscuit could either be I feel like having a biscuit to eat it, or I feel like I am a biscuit.

I am becoming this food.

So my suggestion is this might be one of those things where somebody intentionally misinterpreted a sentence and it just kind of took off from there.

Well, either one of my high school buddies was in Urban Dictionary making an article or there’s at least some other group of people out there.

Oh, Matt, we’ll put the word out and see what turns up, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.

All right, take care of yourself.

Thanks for ringing us up again.

Thank you guys so much.

Take care.

Take care, Matt.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you know the old saying that Matt used, do you feel like a biscuit?

I feel like a biscuit, referring to feeling silly or stupid, 877-929-9673.

Toll-free text or call or email words@waywordradio.org.