Asklemmy

43746 readers

1369 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

179

What family sayings did you think was universal? (infosec.pub)

submitted 3 months ago by dotslashme@infosec.pub to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

101 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As I was growing up, my family had a couple of sayings I took for granted were universal, at least within my language. As I became an adult I have learned that these are not universal at all:

the ketchup effect. It is an expression meaning that when things arrive, they all arrive at the same time. Think of an old school glass ketchup bottle. When you hit the bottom of it, first there is nothing, then there is nothing and then the entire content is on your food.
faster than Jesus slid down the mount of olives. Basically a saying that implies that the mount of olives is slippery due to olive oil and Jesus slipped.
What you lack in memory, your legs suffer. An expression meaning that when you are forgetful, you usually need to run back and thus your legs suffer.

Please share your own weird family sayings.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 16 points 3 months ago (4 children)

My Grandmother used to say "It's better than a kick in the teeth" when deflecting disappointment in an outcome--putting a positive spin on a negative. Being from the UK it seemed universal, but moving to Canada and saying that, people gave me odd looks.

The other one is when somebody is talking nonsense or a bit crazy, they would say "They are out of their tree". For the Welsh the tree symbolizes stability and mental wellness (druids I guess) and if you were stressed or needed to chill their phrase translates to "I need to go back to my trees"

[–] hakobo@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

I'm from the US and "better than a kick in the teeth" and "better than a poke in the eye" are both common around my area. Never heard the tree ones though.

[–] no_kill_i@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I've (also Canadian) heard it as "better than a kick in the pants"

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago

Or "better than a boot to the head", wayyyy before those kids started singing about it ... in the hall. The kids in the hall.

[–] Woht24@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I used to hear 'better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick'

Whatever the fuck that means

[–] Squirrel@thelemmy.club 4 points 3 months ago

My family's was "beats a sharp stick in the eye."

[–] PeterLossGeorgeWall@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

We had better than a poke in the eye with a wet banana.

[–] Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

I always just hear "better than a poke in the eye", not the whole stick thing.

[–] theilleist@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago

No one, I think, is in my tree.

I mean, it must be high or low.