Asklemmy

43945 readers

641 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
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

182

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

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

103 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

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (4 children)

My mom often used two:

"Useless as tits on a bull" (often referencing her husband, my dad)

And also, "shit fire and save matches", which I never understood to actually have a meaning, it was more like just an exclamation of surprise.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

the former is a common, universal phrase.

"like tits on a bull" as a slightly shorter version.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

to be fair if you could shit fire that you would save a lot of matches.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

shit fire and save matches

If a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's ass when it jumped.

I've heard these used when someone says something nonsensical, just as a completely worthless reply.

Worst case Ontario!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

My dad used the shit fire expression. I also don't know of an actual meaning.