“Jack Roses,” the Conversation Has Shifted

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Good morning. My name is Scotty Pearson McDonald, and I’m calling from Dallas, Texas with a question that has been befuddling my family for years.

Oh, wonderful. Welcome, Scotty. What’s up?

So my family, my mother is from Mississippi. My father’s from Georgia.

But growing up, when we would go visit my grandmother in Mississippi, she would often use a phrase called Jack Roses.

So the situation here is we would be sitting around having conversation, and then the topic would change mid-sentence.

Whenever that would happen, someone would say Jack Roses, and that signals whatever we were just talking about, we’re not talking about anymore, we’ve moved on.

But we don’t know anything about the history of that term.

Jack Roses, like the name Jack, J-A-C-K, and roses like the flower?

That’s right. My grandmother used this with her friends. She’s at the family.

And it’s just something that we’ve always said, but we do not know anything about who Jack Roses was.

It was a man or a thing or where it came from.

So is the idea that the conversation just is like a period at the end of a sentence, or was it like, oh, we’re in risky territory, I need to change the subject?

That’s a great question.

It would occur when we would literally change subject.

So there was no period.

It was my grandmother might be rambling off the sentence and then change topic.

And then someone said, Jeff Roses.

Oh, so it’s after the subject is changed, not as an introduction before the subject changes.

Correct.

Correct, because that was sort of, again, everyone’s clue.

Forget what we were just talking about.

We’re not on that anymore.

Grant, I’m baffled.

The only thing I can think of is the Jack Rose Cocktail.

Yeah, that’s really strange.

Yeah, the Jack Rose Cocktail, what is that?

That’s apple jack, grenadine, and limiter lime juice, right?

Right.

Not that common anymore, I don’t think.

Maybe called that because it’s got apple jack, and it has a pinkish look because of the grenadine.

Well, I got to tell you, we’re going to have to put this in out to the callers because I don’t think we have anything else.

I mean, we have a ton of stuff on other ways that people change the conversation, but we don’t have that.

That one is super strange to me.

We had a message quite a while back from Anthony in San Diego who says his hard of hearing grandma misheard a conversation and said, speaking of taxis.

And then she started telling a story and everybody was like confused because they weren’t talking about taxis.

So now for the last 25 years in his family, that’s how they changed the subject.

Everyone says, speaking of taxis, which I think is funny, a nice little family story.

And then there’s Regina in San Antonio says that for some reason in her family, they say her grandmother’s name.

They say Olga Garza to quickly change the subject.

Olga Garza.

And I don’t know what that’s about either.

So perhaps Jack Roses is just like those two stories, one of those family traditions that just grows up out of a tale that is no longer told and an in-joke that is no longer remembered.

Well, we’ve all been really excited to think that you might have an answer.

Yes, because, again, it’s been making us crazy for years.

And I now have introduced all of my coworkers to the term because we always change subjects.

Everybody at my company knows Jack Roses.

If you can help Scotty out, do you know the phrase Jack Rose is being used when someone changes the subject?

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

And, Scotty, if we get good responses, we’ll let the world know, all right?

Oh, I hope somebody calls in with the answer.

Okay.

We do, too.

Take care now.

Thank you so much for your help.

I appreciate it.

Sure.

Bye-bye.

Sure.

Take care.

Bye-bye.