A listener remembers her grandmother’s colorful comment when someone arrived late after getting lost: You went around your elbow to get to your thumb. Lots of similar sayings in English suggest roundabout routes or overcomplicated tasks, including going around your elbow to reach your nose or ear, and other body parts, and going all the way around Robin Hood’s barn. In the UK, you may hear the same idea expressed with going around the Wrekin, a large hill in Shropshire, or going around the houses. The French convey a similar idea with chemin des écoliers, or “the schoolchildren’s path.” A German expression translates as “go from behind through the chest into the eye,” and a similar phrase among Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians roughly translates as “go over a stream for water.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Go Around Your Elbow To Get To Your…”
Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Terry and I’m from Fruit Cove, Florida.
Hi, Terry. Welcome to the program. What’s up? So whenever I was younger learning how to drive, I was very directionally challenged and I would get lost very easily. And so if we had an appointment to get to or we had an event to get to, I would eventually get there, but I was usually about 20 to 30 minutes late. And my grandmother would ask, you know, what took you so long? And say, oh, but I got lost and I had to go this way and then that way. And she said, well, you got here, you just went around your elbow to get to your thumb. And I’ve always wondered where that came from, going around your elbow to get to your thumb.
Oh, it’s a good one. It’s got some color to it, right? Right. So Terry, are you the kind of person who is late even when she’s not lost? You’re on Terry time.
No, no, I’m usually on time. And I’m better now because, of course, we all have phones and you can use your GPS on your phones to get there. I have the directions now. But no. And if it was a place that I was familiar with, I was always on time. It was just if we had to be someplace that I wasn’t familiar with and I would get lost every time. Although my husband will tell you that I get lost going out of my driveway.
Oh, that’s just mean. But going around your elbow to get to your thumb.
Yeah, it’s a great expression. I mean, it’s a much more colorful way of saying, oh, you took a long, unnecessary detour, right? Or you overly complicated a simple task. That’s another thing that it’s applied to. There are lots of different versions of this, like go around your elbow to get to your ear or go around your elbow to get to your nose. And those are cleaned up versions of more earthy anatomical detours. You know, you can talk about going around other body parts to get to your elbow. And that’s been around for a while. But it’s just a great way of making fun of yourself or someone else, right?
Right. Well, is it demographically a saying or is it just a saying that it’s pretty much anywhere? It’s particularly common in the U.S. South. So you being from Jacksonville kind of falls right in line with that. And I’m not sure how long it’s been around, Grant. Maybe 100 years or so?
Not that long. It’s 100 years or so. But like Martha says, not knowing your butt from your elbow is related. Different word for butt. And, of course, we have a lot of ways to talk about taking the long way around. One we’ve mentioned several times in the show is all the way around Robin Hood’s barn. And in the U.K., you might hear a go all around the Recon, which is this big hill in Shropshire, northwest of Birmingham in the U.K.
Yeah, or just go around the houses. Yeah, go around the houses. You know what they say in French, though, Terry? This is my favorite one. They say that you took the schoolchildren’s path, the chemin des écoliers. So schoolchildren walking home will take the longest route, won’t they? Because they don’t want to go home.
Well, they’re really easily distracted. That too. Yeah, absolutely. And then the Germans, they say you go from behind through the chest into the eye.
Whoa. Yeah. Oh, wow. Wow. Okay. That one sounds anatomically impossible.
Yeah. Well, that’s interesting because my grandmother, she always had little sayings and everything, you know, but that was just one that always stuck with me. And I said it one day to my children and they were like, what? You know, so I’m like, okay. That’s a parent goal is to befuddle the children. When you’ve done that, the day is marked as successful.
Exactly. If you think of any more of those, Terry, give us a call, okay? I sure will. And thank you so much.
Yeah, sure. Take care. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
Well, in Danish and Swedish and Norwegian, they say something like, go over the stream for the water. But we know that you’ve got your phone right there, so you can call us toll free. 877-929-9673 is the texting number as well. Or go to our website at waywordradio.org to find lots of ways to reach us and all of our old episodes.
My preferred phrasing: “You’re going around your asshole to get to your elbow.”