A Milwaukee, Wisconsin, listener who heard our conversation about the phrase sharp as a marshmallow sandwich wonders about a similar expression that denotes a person who’s not all that bright: “sharp as a bag of marsh.” Variations of this insult include “sharp as a bowling ball” and “sharp as bag of wet mice.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Sharp as a Bag of Marsh”
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 were talking, Grant, a few weeks ago about the phrase, sharp as a marshmallow sandwich.
Yeah, it means not very bright.
Right, right. Describing somebody who’s not quite all there.
And that prompted an email from Scotty Myers in Milwaukee, or as he says, from the land of elbow benders. That phrase reminded him of something that he heard a few years ago when he was traveling to a friend’s lake house for 4th of July. He writes, I decided to stop in Beaver Dam, a small town between Milwaukee and Madison, to put my leg on a rail and blow the foam off some suds. I went inside the bar, ordered a beer, and just sat there to listen to strangers tell stories to the bartender, a thirsty ethnographer.
A fella at the bar starts talking about how he went to Burger King the other day and ordered a bacon cheeseburger. The cashier told him they didn’t have bacon cheeseburgers. Sorry. Cashier went on to say, however, that the grill cook in the back could make a cheeseburger and put bacon on it.
I thought you’d appreciate this, Greg.
Where is this going?
Well, this perplexed and aggravated the fellow there telling the story. That sounded an awful lot like a bacon cheeseburger. After uttering a few curse words, he said, that kid was as sharp as a bowling ball, referring to the cashier.
He was about as sharp as a wet bag of marsh.
A wet bag of marsh.
Yeah.
And Scotty says it was a wonderful thing to hear in my first time hearing it.
A wet bag of marsh.
And so then Scotty went on the Internet and found that the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn often says he’s about as sharp as a wet bag of mice.
Oh, that’s not funny.
So Scotty’s wondering if a wet bag of marsh is something that’s hyper-localized.
He suspects it may be because Beaver Dam is near the Horicon Marsh, a national state and wildlife refuge.
But I want to know.
And what state is that?
Wisconsin.
Wisconsin.
Wisconsin.
Oh, I don’t know.
A wet bag of marsh.
Did you look it up?
I did.
I couldn’t find anything, but I told Scotty we have lots and lots of listeners.
So Scotty and I are both wondering if anybody else has ever heard this term.
Sharp is a wet bag of marsh.
I like it a lot.
M-A-R-S-H.
M-A-R-S-H.
Let us know, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.
