Grandaddy’s Aphorisms

 

Just wondering. I was recently reminded of my Grandaddy’s penchant for the colloquial observation.  He grew up dirt poor in West Virginia. The derriere, the back of the front, the tush, the bum, the rump, the seat. In a time before digital calibration, this most lagging of the anatomy formed a bedrock against which the natural world was measured. Two of his aphorisms that endure from my childhood recollections are:

  1.  Slicker than a soap maker’s ass, and
  2.  Colder than a well digger’s ass.

He was also fond, every day at 5 p.m. sharp (you could set your watch by it), of proclaiming “Bread is the staff of life, but whiskey is life itself,” before sipping his bourbon and water.

Please chime in one and all with any other such sayings from a bygone era via our dearest relations.

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  1. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Marjorie Reynolds (View Comment):
    I’ve adapted it to the more alliterative as rough as a badger’s behind.

    Might as well go for full out alliteration with:

    Botched as a badger’s behind

    Hmmn, maybe not. How about:

    Bristly as a badger’s behind?

    Rough as a rhino’s rear end.

    • #61
  2. Marjorie Reynolds Coolidge
    Marjorie Reynolds
    @MarjorieReynolds

    Percival (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler (View Comment):

    One of my more profane friends’ Grandad often said that X “wasn’t worth a tinker’s damn.”

    It’s a good, old phrase.

    A tinker’s dam, not damn.

    Tinkers of old were itinerant tradesman. They repaired various things, including tin pots. You would bring him a pot with a hole in it and he would fashion something out of clay to conform to the outside of the pot and let it dry. He followed this with a little molten tin, held in place by the clay. Once that had cooled, the repair was complete, and he’d knock the clay patch off of the pot. The clay patch was known a dam, and was useless thereafter.

    What! I thought it was not worth a tinker’s curse, a tinker being what we now call Irish  Travellers, and used to call Itinerants ( but you’re in trouble if you do now)

    • #62
  3. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    Rough as a rhino’s rear end.

    That’ll do!

    • #63
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Marjorie Reynolds (View Comment):
    I thought it was not worth a tinker’s curse

    That’s the clean version.

    • #64
  5. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Are geese really loose?

    • #65
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Are geese really loose?

    Oh, man, are they ever. And disgusting dinosaurs.

    • #66
  7. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Tinkers of old were itinerant tradesman. They repaired various things, including tin pots. You would bring him a pot with a hole in it and he would fashion something out of clay to conform to the outside of the pot and let it dry. He followed this with a little molten tin, held in place by the clay. Once that had cooled, the repair was complete, and he’d knock the clay patch off of the pot. The clay patch was known a dam, and was useless thereafter.

    From Online Etymology Dictionary:

    Tinker’s damn “something slight and worthless” is from 1824, probably preserving tinkers’ reputation for free and casual use of profanity; the plain and simple etymology is not good enough for some writers, and since 1877 an ingeniously elaborate but baseless derivation has been circulated claiming the second word is really dam.

    Well, damn! I guess that one didn’t clean up well.

    It’s not that elaborate.

    • #67
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Percival (View Comment):
    It’s not that elaborate.

    Considering that it doesn’t need to be at all, it is.

    • #68
  9. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Are geese really loose?

    Loose and extremely generous with it.

    Where I grew up in the Yakima Valley, mint farmers used to hire flocks of geese to weed the mint fields; you could see a whole line of geese marching across the fields.

     

    edited to correct a typo

    • #69
  10. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Are geese really loose?

    Loose and extremely generous with it.

    Where I grew up in the Yakima Valley, mint farmers used to hire flocks of geese to weed the mint fields; you could see a whole line of geese marching across the fields.

     

    edited to correct a typo

    Around the northwest Chicago suburbs, there was  a guy who kept swans and would rent one out to places who were suffering from a goose infestation. Geese are territorial, but swans are even more territorial, and the swan would run off the geese. The guy said he did pretty brisk business with the golf courses.

    • #70
  11. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Percival (View Comment):
    Geese are territorial, but swans are even more territorial, and the swan would run off the geese.

    All of the water dinosaurs are jerks, including ducks. But the bigger they are, the bigger and more dangerous the jerk.

    Of course, the Southern Hemisphere dinosaurs are even worse.

    • #71
  12. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    well there was that saying about the cat and…

    • #72
  13. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Geese are territorial, but swans are even more territorial, and the swan would run off the geese.

    All of the water dinosaurs are jerks, including ducks. But the bigger they are, the bigger and more dangerous the jerk.

    Of course, the Southern Hemisphere dinosaurs are even worse.

    The swan, the ostrich and cassowary are definitely birds I’d give wide berth to.

     

    • #73
  14. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Percival (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler (View Comment):

    One of my more profane friends’ Grandad often said that X “wasn’t worth a tinker’s damn.”

    It’s a good, old phrase.

    A tinker’s dam, not damn.

    Tinkers of old were itinerant tradesman. They repaired various things, including tin pots. You would bring him a pot with a hole in it and he would fashion something out of clay to conform to the outside of the pot and let it dry. He followed this with a little molten tin, held in place by the clay. Once that had cooled, the repair was complete, and he’d knock the clay patch off of the pot. The clay patch was known a dam, and was useless thereafter.

    I was just about to ackchyually, but you ackchyuallied first. 

    • #74
  15. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Are geese really loose?

    Certainly not, they mate for life. 

    • #75
  16. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Geese are territorial, but swans are even more territorial, and the swan would run off the geese.

    All of the water dinosaurs are jerks, including ducks. But the bigger they are, the bigger and more dangerous the jerk.

    Of course, the Southern Hemisphere dinosaurs are even worse.

    The swan, the ostrich and cassowary are definitely birds I’d give wide berth to.

    But not a live berth ;) 

    • #76
  17. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    TBA (View Comment):

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Geese are territorial, but swans are even more territorial, and the swan would run off the geese.

    All of the water dinosaurs are jerks, including ducks. But the bigger they are, the bigger and more dangerous the jerk.

    Of course, the Southern Hemisphere dinosaurs are even worse.

    The swan, the ostrich and cassowary are definitely birds I’d give wide berth to.

    But not a live berth ;)

    Eggz-actly.

    • #77
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