Posing for Animal Crackers

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 had a voicemail from Catherine in Strucca, Pennsylvania, who wanted to share a phrase from her stepmother. Whenever somebody did something frustrating, or if, say, she was waiting at a traffic light and the car in front of her didn’t start off when the light turned green, her stepmother would always say, “Are you posing for animal crackers?”

Posing for animal crackers. Doing a little elephant there.

Well, I thought for sure that this must be her stepmother’s own phrase, but not at all. I mean, it’s such a wacky one, right?

Right, right. Posing for animal crackers. It’s a thing, though, right?

It’s definitely a thing. Of course, animal crackers have been around since the late 19th century. And these are these little semi-sweet cookies that are shaped like giraffes and tigers and camels and monkeys. And they bring back such memories for me.

When I was little enough to be put in the shopping cart and my mother would push me around, she would always just grab animal crackers off the shelf and give them to me to eat while we were going around the store just to keep me quiet.

My understanding of this expression, what I’ve seen used over the years, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s something about being frivolous or lazy or not doing very much.

Yeah, or just being silly. You know, I thought that maybe it had something to do with the Marx Brothers film Animal Crackers, but that was 1930. And the expression goes back at least to the early 1900s.

The instances where I’ve seen it, it’s sort of like they’re making fun of whatever somebody’s doing. They look silly or they’re doing something fruitless. Are you posing for animal crackers? Or I’ve seen being a model for animal crackers.

Yeah. Although that’s an older version of it. I love it.

Well, don’t just sit there posing for animal crackers. Pick up your telephone. Call us. 877-929-9673 is toll free in the United States and Canada.

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