A woman in San Diego, California, says that when she was making too much noise as a youngster, her dad would gently reprimand her by saying, “You’re a noisy piece of cheese.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A Noisy Piece of Cheese”
Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi there, this is Morgan in San Diego.
Hey Morgan, how you doing?
Hi Morgan.
Good, thanks.
Welcome, what can we do for you?
I have little dogs, like the size of cats, and when one of them is yappy and being loud, I’ll sometimes say, you’re a noisy piece of cheese.
And this expression, noisy piece of cheese, I’ve never heard anyone else use it except for my dad.
My dad would use it with us when we were kids, if we were being loud.
He would say, you’re a noisy piece of cheese. It was always like used affectionately. And it wasn’t exactly a shushing, but sometimes they’re like precede a shushing.
And I asked my dad, where did you get this from? And he said, like me, the only person he ever heard say it was his dad.
So that’s kind of like the end of the line. That’s as much as we know about where this phrase noisy piece of cheese came from.
For what it’s worth, I know that his dad came from Appalachia, but that’s all we know, and I’m so curious, like, who says noisy piece of cheese, and why? What’s the origin?
Well, I love that you do, and I love that you say it to yappy little dogs. What kind are they?
Three little loud terriers.
Okay, yeah, those are noisy pieces of cheese. This is so interesting.
I’m not aware of any kind of written record that has the phrase noisy piece of cheese in it.
The only thing I can think of is that it’s just something so absurd. I mean, it almost sounds like a dad-ism or a granddad-ism that you might pass down just because it’s so counterintuitive.
Something that should be quiet isn’t?
Yeah.
Yeah. Something that, yeah, just something so nonsensical and I’m not aware of anything like of it being a translation from any other language.
There’s a couple other things come to mind.
You’re probably thinking what I’m thinking as is everyone in Wisconsin.
They’re squeaking.
They’re squeaking at the radio right now.
Yeah, but they’re squeaking about curds, are they not?
Cheddar curds that squeak when you eat them?
Yeah.
Is that how that works?
Well, apparently there’s some kind of cheese. I think it’s called squeaky cheese and it’s so it’s before it ages.
It’s like it’s just been turned.
Yeah, that it actually squeaks against your teeth.
Oh, I didn’t know about squeaky cheese.
Maybe that’s it.
What I noticed about how my dad uses it is that you wouldn’t really use it with an adult.
You would only use it with, like, a kid or a noisy dog.
And it’s affectionate.
It’s endearing.
And, yeah.
-huh.
And it’s always used in the context of noise.
It’s never just, oh, your little cheese or your little cheese ball or something like that?
No, no, no.
It’s always noisy piece of cheese.
You don’t pronounce the of.
You know, it sounds more folksy.
Okay.
One more idea for you.
Because you said it’s affectionate and it’s towards dogs and kids, do you think it’s a reference to cut the cheese, meaning to flatulate?
I don’t know.
Calling you a little fart?
A noisy fart?
I hope my dad wasn’t calling me a noisy little fart all of his time.
My dad never talked about it that way.
I’ll ask him if his dad ever, like, there’s any connection with that, but none that I know of.
Okay.
That’s so interesting.
I’m thinking about the word feisty now.
Oh, Martha’s on her.
Her eyes are rolling back in her head.
She comes up with this etymology for feisty.
Yeah, because feist means a little farting dog.
That’s where we get the word feisty.
Oh, interesting.
So I don’t know.
Are your dogs feisty?
In more ways than one.
Do feed them cheese?
Sometimes they are.
Well, the nice thing about doing a national show about language is that when something is new to me and Martha, sometimes it isn’t to the rest of our listeners, and they’ll send us emails and make phone calls and let us know what they know about it.
So, Morgan, we’re going to find out if other people use this in their families or if it just belongs to your family.
I would love to hear about that.
Something I really love about this saying is that it’s like I inherited it from generations before me, so it feels really special.
I’d love to know if it connects me to more people.
Yeah, that’s cool.
It’s like it was willed to you or something, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s a hand-me-down.
That’s great, and now you’re popularizing it too.
Yes, before long, everyone will be saying it.
A noisy piece of cheese.
Morgan, you have been a delightful piece of cheese, and we’re happy to have you on the show.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
All right, take care.
Thanks. Have a good dog. Bye-bye.
All right. Here’s the call out.
If you know what Morgan was talking about, if you know something about noisy piece of cheese is a thing to call a kid or a dog when they’re being a little loud, let us know.
Or email words@waywordradio.org.
