Transcript of “You Thought Like Nelly”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Greg McDonald in Mena, Arkansas.
I had a flight instructor.
I’m a professional pilot, and I had a flight instructor back in the 80s to mid-90s in that range.
And he had this saying that was just sort of odd at the time, and we all kind of just grown to accept it, but we didn’t really know what it was.
And so what he would say is, when you were doing something wrong, and you would say, oh, I thought I should have done this, or I should have thought I should have done that, he would say, well, you thought like Nellie.
And we never knew what that meant.
It was just this odd saying, but we all knew what it meant.
You didn’t think correctly.
You didn’t think correctly.
You thought like Nellie, like the woman’s name, N-E-L-L-Y?
Yes, yes.
So it was just this odd thing.
We said it all the time.
And so we kind of adopted, even in my own family, I’ve said it from time to time and they all laugh, even though nobody really knows where it came from.
Oh, that’s so interesting.
Did you ever ask him about it, like where he got it from or any clues to his background?
He’s passed away now.
And, you know, it was one of those he was a no nonsense guy.
And so you would he would be kind of too much intimidating to ask a question like that.
I see.
You just kind of were better off just assuming you knew what it meant and going on with life.
Gotcha.
I know those types.
My dad was one of those types.
You thought like Nellie, so that meant you thought wrong, basically.
Correctly.
Yeah, yeah.
It was just like, oh, you knew you screwed up.
You should have just kept your mouth shut.
That’s what you should have done.
You know, it’s not that common.
It only pops up in a couple places in my reference materials, and then there’s a few people who use it online.
It really isn’t.
There are some variants.
You thought that peanut butter was jelly.
You thought the cat pooped jelly, but a different word for poop.
Oh, weird.
And you thought that poop was jelly.
Again, a different word for poop.
But, yeah, so it’s just a longer version.
You thought like Nellian thought poop was jelly is the longest form with a little bit of rhyme in there.
That is interesting.
So you think maybe he just modified that a little bit then, huh?
Yeah.
It just clipped.
You’ll often find that old expressions get clipped and shortened to their versions,
Like happy as a clam at high tide.
We now just say happy as a clam.
Oh, okay.
Well, that actually makes sense.
So that’s really awesome.
Yeah.
But I find it back in the 1970s, but not much older than that.
So we don’t really know much about it.
The nice thing about this show, though, Greg,
We have a big listenership across the United States and Canada and around the world.
And so maybe somebody else remembers this.
Has little bits of data they can throw our way. We’ll see.
Yeah. And Greg, I’m wondering about his intonation. Was it like a disgusted you thought
Like Nellie or like a joking you thought like Nellie?
Oh, no. He was such a pleasant person. I mean, he was never, like he had a hard external shell
And he always tried to, you know, bring that to the surface. But I mean, he was not
Mean or condescending at all. You would just, you know, oh, I thought I should have put the flaps
Down at this point and he would just say, well, you thought like Nellie.
You know, it was just this offhandedly comment that he would say and you would get the point.
So, Greg, before we go, I take it you’re a pilot?
Yes.
And what do you fly?
What’s your work?
Well, actually, so I fly in the corporate world at this time.
I’ve done just about everything up to this point.
Well, call us again sometime with your aviation jargon.
We’d love to hear some of that, too.
Yeah.
Okay.
Ben, I’m so glad that we got to talk.
All right.
Take care of yourself.
Fly safe.
Flap those arms.
Bye, Greg.
Bye.
Bye.
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