A Dutch one I got from my Oma: "It's as if the angels upon my tongue have pissed". It means "yum".
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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Alsof er een engeltje over je tong pist.
"watch the ficus" - telling somebody to be more careful after they do something clumsy like tripping or nearly dropping something. I used it in front of some friends once and got confused looks. Apparently grandma used to have a potted ficus tree and used to tell me to watch it when I was playing close to it, so it stuck as a saying in the family.
haha awesome. So concise, it does sound like a wise saying
You might already heard this one but I didn't learn until a relatively recent internet meme that its only here in Norway that something being "complete texas" means its completely chaotic and messy.
Also I'm using "what the fir forest" ("hva i granskauen") as a replacement for "what the hell" and I have no idea where I've picked it up.. Nobody else around me do, not even family. Works just as fine though against pain and annoyances.
complete texas
I have distant family who moved to Texas. I will steal this, but only to give it away.
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"
I've (also Canadian) heard it as "better than a kick in the pants"
Or "better than a boot to the head", wayyyy before those kids started singing about it ... in the hall. The kids in the hall.
No one, I think, is in my tree.
I mean, it must be high or low.
"Don't yuk somebody else's yum."
DEGUSTIBUSNONESTDISPUTANDUM
not sure I spelled it right, means "regarding personal tastes, there is no dispute"
Also another good one, "moderation in everything, including moderation."
I think the full phrase is De gustibus non disputandum in contradictorium (declinations might be off somewhere)
I always say "moderation in everything, including moderation" often as well
We quoted Oscar Wilde around our house quite a bit. Glad someone else out there was too!
Fritzlehoffers. As a general term for anything you either don't know the name of or cant remember. Hand me the fritzlehoffers next to you please.
Not really a saying, but when I was a kid I wanted to learn how to whistle so badly. I was told that if I ate pickles it would help me learn faster? I didn't eat any, and I still figured it out eventually.
Not a family saying, but my grandad used this joke soooo often:
Q: What's the difference between a snake in the grass and a goose?
A: A snake in the grass is an asp in the grass, but a grasp in the ass is a goose!
My folks liked to purposefully mix metaphors, so instead of saying "The worm has turned", they'd say, "The shoe has turned" and "The worm is on the other foot".
I'm sure there's an origin somewhere, but since I don't know it, the call-out for doing something particularly dumb was, "Why don't you just ram your face into my fist?" (suggesting your stupidity was impressive, but not worth the actual bother of 'punishing' you for it, especially given you were probably stupid enough to punish yourself).
βDoes a hawks arse pucker in a power dive?β When someone asked a question that had an unequivocal answer of yes. Similar to does a bear shit in the woods,
Slickern owlshit
You better finish your dinner, don't you know there are starving children in Africa?
Turns out that one was actually universal.
I guess so!
Were you born in the 1970s? Both me and my wife heard that exact same sentence from our mothers.
Yup. We also might come from the "step on a crack, break your mother's back" generation?
We have a similar saying in my family, but it translates into break one generation at a time, meaning you allow the kids to be lazy while the parents work themselves to death. It is usually used as a dig when someone younger is lazy.
Ketchup effect is known outside your family. Some years ago, the then head of government of my country used the term in the context of COVID-19 vaccines. I can't quickly find sources in English, but: https://kurier.at/freizeit/trending/ketchup-effekt-mcdonalds-scherzt-ueber-kurz-sager/401206246
I'm familiar with the last one. Love the "ketchup effect", have to remember that one