Saucered and Blowed and Ready to Sip

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, y’all. This is Larry down in Texas. How y’all doing?

All right, Larry. Welcome to the show.

What’s up, Larry?

Okay, well, I heard my grandma use this term, and then I have a cowboy friend that used this term.

And he used it in a way that I didn’t quite understand, so maybe you could help me out a little bit.

The term is, he finished the conversation, and he said, it is saucered and bloated.

And I was trying to figure out what in the world does saucered and blowed mean.

What does it mean?

So he got to the end of a conversation.

Was it about a project or something that was going on?

Yeah, we just had a conversation.

He said, okay, it’s saucered and blowed.

Okay.

And I heard a preacher one time say when he finished his sermon, it was saucered and blowed.

So I’m assuming it’s something that means it’s over, but I don’t know where it came from.

But my grandmother used it, so maybe it’s an old term.

I’m not sure.

Yeah, particularly in the 18th century, saucers were a lot deeper than they are now.

They were more like little bowls.

And there’s been a long tradition in Europe, in the U.K. with tea, and also here in the United States,

particularly with coffee, or as my ancestors used to do because they couldn’t afford coffee,

they would just do this with boiling water.

And so if you’ve poured out your coffee into the saucer and, you know, it’s spread out and it’s cooling off

and then you blow on it a little bit more, it’s ready to drink.

It’s, you know, mission accomplished.

Oh, okay.

So it’s kind of like a mission accomplished.

It’s all over with, so let’s get on with something like that.

You have saucered it, meaning you’re putting it in the saucer, and you did blow on it, meaning you cooled it off with your own breath.

Therefore, it is finished and ready to drink.

It’s been around for a while.

Larry, there’s a story that George Washington once told Thomas Jefferson that the U.S. Senate was designed to be the saucer that would cool down the hot legislation that came over from the House.

Oh, goodness gracious.

Right?

Goodness gracious.

Yeah, that story may be apocryphal, but it’s quite an image, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, unbelievable.

Well, I sure hope the conversation cut the mustard with you folks.

It definitely did.

It sure did, yeah.

Okay.

Larry, you know what this conversation is now, don’t you?

No, ma’am.

What is this?

Is it all saucer and blowed?

Yes, sir.

I hope your program isn’t saucer and blowed and you just keep on going.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Take care.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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