Jeff in Knoxville, Tennessee, is the only one in his family who remembers his grandmother’s card-table exclamation: For crying in a bucket! Whenever she got a bad hand in a game of crazy eights or king’s corners, she’d shout that instead of swearing...
Deb in Lombard, Illinois, shared an expression her grandmother used when irritated with someone: Hey, buddy, walk east till your hat floats! In other words, it’s the same ill-willed advice as go play in traffic! This is part of a complete...
Chrissie in Arlington, Virginia, has fond memories of her family playing bridge together. Whenever a trick with four cards that included an ace, a two card, a three card, and a four card was played, her grandmother would chuckle and say, Ace, two...
Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...
Byron in Florence, South Carolina, is curious about his grandmother’s expression might as well, can’t dance, which she used when someone suggested an activity. This saying, as well as longer versions, are rooted in the idea of weather...
The phrase don’t worry, it’ll be a pig’s foot in the morning is meant to comfort or reassure a child who’s stubbed her toe or scraped her knee or suffered some other minor injury. This expression is especially common in...
