When two people are walking side-by-side holding hands but briefly separate to go around an obstacle on opposite sites, they might say “bread and butter.” This phrase apparently stems from an old superstition that if the two people want...
Savannah from Richmond, Virginia, heard a home video in which her great-grandmother from rural Central Texas called a male relative someone’s old scratch, then seemed embarrassed. Old Scratch means the devil or Satan, and in that family context, it...
A Wisconsin listener says that when her body gets an involuntary, inexplicable shudder, she says “A goose walked over my grave.” An early version of the saying, “There’s somebody walking over my grave!” appears in a...
If you play with fire, you’ll pee the bed is one of those parental warnings built less on logic than on knowing your audience. Carrie in South Central Kentucky heard it locally, then learned that a young man from Brazil knew the same idea. Folklore...
“I don’t care if it harelips the queen” means “come hell or high water,” or “regardless of the consequences.” The phrase is particularly popular in Texas, as are such variants as harelips the governor, harelips the president, harelips every cow in...
Among some speakers of English, saying rabbit, rabbit before saying anything else on the first morning of the first day of the month supposedly ensures good luck for the next four weeks. Other versions of this superstition include saying white...