Snot on a Doorknob

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant.

This is Noah calling from Los Angeles, California.

Welcome to the program, Noah.

How can we help?

I am calling today concerning a specific something my father always used to say. He always used to say it when something we did went smoothly or something we did went well, usually better than usual. He always used to say, well, that was flicker than snot in the doorknob.

Slicker than snot on a doorknob.

How delightful.

That’s pretty slick.

Very delightful.

Any idea where he got that?

So she was born in Orange County in Fountain Valley. His mother is from Gilman City, Missouri. So a little city of like population of 400 out in Missouri. And his father was from Ohio. He lived in Fountain Valley all his life. And he reported that it probably came from his father. But he doesn’t quite remember exactly. So I guess that’s all the background that I have.

Yeah, I don’t know that there’s a regional component to this, Martha, right? It’s pretty widespread.

Pretty widespread.

And I remember hearing it first from my Aunt Mazo in North Carolina.

Aunt Mazo!

Aunt Mazo is on the show again. She was ironing a shirt for somebody, and she said, Lord, he loves his shirts ironed, slicker and snot. She didn’t add the doorknob, but I think the doorknob gives it emphasis, right?

Yeah, there are a lot of these comparatives, by the way, slicker than. And sometimes the four-letter word beginning with S isn’t snot. You probably know that one.

We can’t say that one.

Suet.

Suet, yeah, suet. That’s what I was thinking of. A slicker than greased lightning or slicker than greased weasel poo on a doorknob.

Oh, that’s good.

That’s nice.

I euphemized the word. I used poo instead of the other word.

That’s nice.

Slicker than mule spit.

Oh, that’s nice.

A ton of these.

A ton of these.

I’ve seen slicker than snot on a frog, which is also pretty slick, right?

Yeah, it’s true.

But why a doorknob? Do you suspect that it’s hard to grab a doorknob even at the best of times and you’ve got something on your hands?

You know, funny you should ask that because just the other night I had just put lotion on my hands. Yes, I do this all the time. You’d think I would learn. And the doorbell rings.

Oh, no, I do it right before I leave the house. You’d think I would learn.

Right.

You think you’re – yeah, I know. I had to stick my hand in my pants pocket and use my pants pocket.

I’ve done that too.

Have you?

Okay.

We’re the same person. We weren’t going anyplace fancy, right?

I got to tell you, no, one of my favorite ones, though, one of these comparatives is slicker than a hickory elm. And that requires that you know a little bit about a hickory elm.

I don’t.

They’ve got this super smooth bark.

Oh.

Yeah, very, very smooth.

Yeah.

Does it generally refer to something that happens easily? Like, that was easy. I remember Staples had a big motto. Does it usually refer to something that’s done well or easily or easier than usual?

Yeah, they should have used slicker than snot. There are about three meanings of slick that this is used for. One is smooth, so smooth that it’s hard to grab it. Another one is easy or simple. And another one is clever, and clever with another sub-meaning, which means clever in a way that deceives you or tricks you. So you can talk about somebody being a slicker than snot, meaning that they’ve just rooked you out of your life savings because they tried to sell you cheap siding or something like that.

Okay, some smarmy politician.

Well, that is awesome.

Thank you guys very, very much.

Yeah, sure.

I don’t know if we had an answer, but we had fun.

We did.

We certainly did.

Thanks for calling, Noah.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye.