Off We Go, Laughing and Scratching

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

We’ve received lots of responses to our conversation about the phrase, off we go like a herd of turtles. It’s that expression that’s most often used by parents when they’re trying to round up the kids and get them out the door.

We heard from Joanna Jarvis, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, who said that that saying really took her back because her father used that expression when he was trying to get everybody into the car. She writes, we were four kids and I can’t imagine it was easy corralling us. But the other thing that he would always say during those moments was, here we go, laughing and scratching.

What does that mean?

I don’t know. What do you picture, Grant?

I’m picturing like a troop of monkeys.

I am too. Children are often compared to monkeys, like scratching in uncouth places and howling and chattering.

Yeah, I’m picturing the barrel just emptying. Here we go, laughing and scratching.

But it turns out that her dad wasn’t the only person who used this expression. In a 1939 newspaper column by Walter Winchell, he writes about the Hollywood director Archie Mayo, who directed actors like Mae West and Humphrey Bogart. And one of his last films was A Night in Casablanca with the Marx Brothers. And supposedly Archie Mayo, instead of saying action when he started to direct a scene, would say, here we go, laughing and scratching.

I can imagine with the Marx Brothers, it was totally appropriate. Can you imagine the chaos on set with those guys?

Yeah. That was not a herd of turtles.

We’d love to hear from you about the things that your family said when you were growing up or the things that you say now in your own family, whether it’s old or new, whether it’s something that you’ve invented or something that you heard. Share it with us, 877-929-9673. That’s toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, 24 hours a day. And no matter where you are in the world, you can email us, words@waywordradio.org or tell us on Twitter @wayword.