The Odd Legacy of Grandma Michell

[rj_anderson]

Pollywog just asked me to put his favorite video game on the computer for him (due to his aforementioned love of bulls, that would be Extreme Pamplona, naturally). But he wanted to make sure the screen was maximized first: "Full-scream it, Mommy."

That bit of cuteness reminded me of how my kids still refer to "breakfast" as "brekstef" and talk about cutting paper with "snizzors", but it also made me think about the odd bits of vocabulary that have been handed down through my family over the last couple of generations -- words and sayings that we all take for granted, but which cause strangers to go "Huh?"

My maternal grandmother died before I was born, but by all accounts she was an affectionate, good-humored, and unapologetically quirky character. She was a Cornishwoman born and bred, and she passed down to her children and grandchildren not merely a patriotic love of Cornish pasties and Saffron Cake, but also an assortment of strange and wonderful sayings.

In my grandmother's household, minor acts of naughtiness among her children would be rebuked with phrases like, "Oh, you rotten rubber duck!" or if the incident were truly irritating (such as the cat getting into the milk), "You demon blackguard wretch!" On the other hand, someone who suffered a minor mishap or disappointment would be soothed with a pat on the shoulder and a softly intoned, "Nizzles." Or she might even say "Bless your screeds and gizzards." (I know what "gizzards" are, but what on earth are "screeds"?)

My grandmother also had the perfect description for the impulse that leads a finicky mother to clean off some smudge on her child's face by rubbing it with spit: she called it "clane base-tliness" (clean beastliness). And I can only blame my grandmother's influence for the poem I use when trying to remember the months of the year:

Thirty days hath Septober,
April, June, and no wonder.
All the rest have peanut butter,
Except for Grandma, and she rides a tricycle.

What about the rest of you? What unique words, phrases and/or sayings have been passed down in your family?

Comments

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

*grin* When she was small and we were moving house, my sister unthinkingly suggested we place her bed 'crockward' - ie., on the diagonal. We still use that one to this day, along with 'amblyance' and 'in fit' [ie, physically fit].

Most of my other odd sayings were picked up the course of my reading - a useful resource when your faith frowns on swearing. An exasperated 'Oh, good lord on a bicycle!' can be wonderfully satisfying.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

I should also mention my aunt, source of wonderful, totally random poetry: "Spring is here/The grass is riz/I wonder where the birdies is?"

Not to mention the classic "Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?" "Down here. The damn ladder broke."

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I've heard that "Spring is here" one, though I can't remember who used to say it... a friend of mine in high school, I think.

My grandmother did like to quote another delightful poem:

Love is such a funny thing,
It's something like a lizard;
It wraps itself around your heart
And nibbles at your gizzard.

[tree_and_leaf]

I've come across "Spring has sprung, the grass is riz" (etc) in various anthologies of comic verse, but I can't remeber who it's by.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, it is 'spring is sprung'. I'd forgotten. Whenever I asked my aunt where she'd gotten it, it was likewise 'in some joke book I had as a kid...'

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

My grandmother did like to quote another delightful poem

Your grandmother was a wise woman. :)

[bittervillager.livejournal.com]

From my husband's now-departed great-grandmother:

"Get a wiggle on!"

From my still living and still rather evil maternal grandmother:

"It's coming down out there like a cow peeing on a flat rock!" In our family (husband and kids) it's devolved into "Well, it looks like there's a cow and a flat rock somewhere...."

[miladygrey.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how unique they are, but I've only ever heard myself and my mother use these. As a mild expression of annoyance, we exclaim either "Grace and favor!" or "For-ev-ermore!" The last should be said in the strongest Southern accent one can muster.

*laughs* Now that I'm transplanted from Tennessee all the way up to Delaware, I get odd looks whenever the accent pops out. Also whenever I say "y'all".

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

In our family, from my Mom's mother (a Galway woman):
That's galley west (to refer to something higgledy-piggeldy or disordered.)

From my Dad's side:
"Harold! George! Ernest!" These are the names you call when you cannot remember the name of the particular child you want to come, and I think it comes from a neighbor in the small factory town where he grew up.

"Bilabil", pronounced "beel ah beel". From my Dad's youngest brother when he was a toddler; "automobile". A combo of shortening the longer word and lengthening the Swedish word, which is "Bil". There were a lot of Scandinavian immigrants in this little town. When Dad saw "My Life as a Dog", he said it reminded him strongly of his hometown when he was growing up.

Also from Dad, a couple of wonderful WWI era songs we sing in the car.

[scionofgrace.livejournal.com]

"Demon blackguard wretch" - LOVE IT!

These are wonderful. I like the poem too, for the weirdness.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

And it must be pronounced "blaggard", naturally. :)

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, we have a whole lot of weird family catchphrases. For some reason, it is an established truths that rabbits say "mop-mop" (like pigs say "oink"). My mother is given to the phrase "Ye Gods and little blistering jellyfish!" in moments of stress (she also has a tendency to describe blatant untruths as "Black protestant lies", which I think is an Irish republican phrase - and rather bizarre coming from a Scots protestant, which she is. It is quite a satsfying phrase to say, though).

The family phrase for having your period is 'to be shalloted', because of the line in "The Lady of Shallot" - "The curse has come upon me, cried the Lady of Shallot.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Oh, that last one is wonderful.

[tree_and_leaf]

I suspect that euphemisms for taboo subjects are probably a very rich source of odd private phraseology (I know someone who refers to her period as 'having her visitor', which frankly creeps me out a bit, but...)

[bookaholicgirl.livejournal.com]

I tend to call it "the bloody nuisance."

[quiller77.livejournal.com]

A perfect description.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

"Shalotted" is brilliant. :)

[kerravonsen]

Not so much passed down, but certainly familial phrases; there was a point at which one of my brothers was making up expletives to use instead of "swear words" and certain of them spread to the rest of us:
- "peanuts and raisins!" (an exclamation of surprise)
- "prunes!" (mild annoyance)
- "prunes to them all!" (annoyance)
- "prunus maximus!" (not so mild annoyance)

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Junglebars are monkeybars.
"Tooken" instead of "taken"
And my kids have a universal tendency to flip intervocalic b and v (covered, not cupboard), to the point that when someone named Sulliban ran for local office, I kept automatically calling him Sullivan.

And Anyway Aunt Nanny

[etlhoy.livejournal.com]

When I was about six, and my brother was about four, we were in a car on a longish trip with my mother, aunt and cousins. Most of my family is very loud and talkative, but my brother is not, so he had been sitting there quietly while the rest of us conversed. Out of the blue, he piped up, as though he'd been speaking all along, "And anyway, Aunt Nanny, I have to go pee real bad." So, to this day, "And anyway Aunt Nanny..." means you have to go to the bathroom.

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

We just have one my Aunt Gussie-Granma's sister used to refill the coffee for the men in the family by saying 'You wanna shotta hot, sweetie?"
The men had important Men's Work to do, mere females, of course, could get their own coffee.;)

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

Whenever my Scottish grandmother (born in Nova Scotia, but raised in Michigan) is surprised she says, "Well, Mandy Mashutzki's uncle!" Apparently Mandy was a friend of hers in grade school--but my grandmother has no idea why she started saying that.

If you're being naughty she'd call you a "Turk."

One of my cousins insisted on calling ginger ale "ginger bell" when she was three and my mother always called it that.

My mother used to call me things like "presumtious insect" and "infamous creature"--but that's from My Fair Lady.

[m-stiefvater.livejournal.com]

My absolute favorite, from my younger sister: "beister". Meaning = "spider." I have no idea why this one has stuck around so long or why it is so pervasive, but even my husband knew it by the time that Spiderman came out, because he mocked my sister by calling it Beisterman.

Also, I can't remember how old your munchkins are . . . but, my kids love this site, which is deceptively simple: Poisson Rouge. (http://www.poissonrouge.com)

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Okay, the tricycle rhyme IMMEDIATELY made me think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPTKqpRYQSM

Admittedly, the video is weird. The song was by the same guy responsible for "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-HA!" (Napoleon XIV)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

A couple more, since people are posting rhymes! All these are from Dad.

1. A saying. "Many are cold, but few are frozen." I actually say this a lot, particularly when I'm freezing.

2. Some nonsense verses/spoofs
"High upon the mountain/Where green grows the grass/
There is a little billygoat/sliding on his overcoat."

(2d version)
"Of all the fishes in the sea/I think I like the bass.
He climbs up all the rocks and trees/and slides down on his hands and knees."

BTW, my Mom also says, "ye Gods und little fishes." I thought that was perfectly normal? Hadn't heard of the jellyfishes, though. My Dad's mother used to say, "my Godfrey" when she was mildly annoyed.

I think I might record the songs, starting with "Hail Massachusetts." I have not come across anyone who knows this - not even friends who hail from Massachusetts!

[sheryll.livejournal.com]

Not sure where it comes from but my mother is fond of saying "spit and piffle" when she's annoyed.