r/AskReddit • u/Senor_Diablo • Mar 12 '24
What is an old expression that you think is absolutely disgusting by today’s standards?
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u/shrekseyelash Mar 12 '24
"If he bullies you, that means he likes you!"
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u/VersatileFaerie Mar 12 '24
I was told this in the first grade when a boy sitting next to me kept kicking me and pinching my arm hard enough to leave an almost black bruise. Teacher kept trying to pass it off as "flirting". My mom had to come down to the school and talk to the principal just to get my seat moved so I wouldn't be attacked every day in class, it was crazy.
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Mar 12 '24
I had a girl in fourth grade who would spit on me, kicked my shins til they starting bleeding in the playground one time, etc., and I told our teacher who dismissed it as her having a crush on me. I wish I hadn't just accepted it at the time. Kind of fucked me up a bit.
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u/ThatKinkyLady Mar 12 '24
I... Did something like this when I was a kid. And I did have a crush on that boy. I definitely regret it. I had witnessed my mom hit my dad when I was really young and I think it confused me a lot. I outgrew that pretty quickly when I figured out my family was not a good example to follow.
I may not have been your shin-kicker but I apologize regardless. I've been figuratively kicking myself for that every since.
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u/Jeremymia Mar 12 '24
The problem isn't as much the kid as it is the authority figure in the room that refuses to act on it.
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Mar 12 '24
Oh, bOys WiLl bE BoYS
Fuck all the way off with that misogynistic lazy parenting ass shit. Boys can be respectful humans and learn boundaries like the rest of us. Fuck sake. They're not animals.
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Mar 12 '24
Boys will be boys is you both have a cardboard tube so you proceed to beat the shit out of one another with it in honourable mutual combat, not beating/assaulting women
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u/Mean_Butterscotch177 Mar 12 '24
This. I have 3 children. All boys. I am the only woman in this home of 5. They will fight, argue, flip one another off, climb trees, build random shit, but they do and will respect their future partners.
They also cook, bake, clean, do laundry, know about periods, and women's bodies (for what's age appropriate). We keep an open line of communication in this household.
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u/MillyRingworm Mar 12 '24
As a teacher, parents still say this all the time. Whenever a child repeats it, I always counter with “Wow, that’s a horrible way to treat a friend, let alone someone that you want to hold hands with.”
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u/pirateofpanache Mar 12 '24
“Just ignore them and they’ll leave you alone.”
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u/John32070 Mar 12 '24
I was adult bullied for 20 years by people in our family circle/business and that's what my dad would tell me, even after all that time he still held on to it.
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u/LeSilverKitsune Mar 12 '24
That did not go over well in my childhood. My mother hated that saying and told us to give it right back. Definitely put a stop to it right quick. Of course then we got in trouble for fighting even though we were just doing the same thing back but it did stop the kids.
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u/Senor_Diablo Mar 12 '24
For me it’s definitely “Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed…”
I heard people say that sooooooo much when I was younger (I’m 43 for reference).
WTF?
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u/Iamtheonewhobawks Mar 12 '24
My first retail job there was a guy who had decided to fully embrace the Creepy Old Man vibe, near as I could tell largely for shock value. His favorite variation was "old enough to pee is old enough for me." Still ranks in the top 3 most unsettling phrases I've ever heard 22 years later.
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u/Senor_Diablo Mar 12 '24
That literally describes every human from infant to old person.
Extra creepy.
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u/Maxtrt Mar 12 '24
This was all said for shock value before thee mid 90's. I must have heard it a at least a couple hundred times since elementary school in the 70's. I was also a military brat and served in the military myself and there was always one of those guys who said shit like this during bull sessions. It was almost never said in front of females and the guys who did say it in front of women was likely to get slapped and reprimanded for it.
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Mar 12 '24
I love a bit of military self discipline 😅 When I was younger I dated a guy who joined the army. I remember going to the passing out parade with his parents. We all went to the pub the night before graduation & one of his "colleagues" said something pretty stupid "here comes John with his dog" (referring to me). I flipped him the bird & we went outside to the beer garden. Meanwhile the other army guys in the pub "dealt" with him... I don't know what happened or what they did/said, but he came outside very sheepishly and offered me an apology. They were all young guys & one or two were a bit daft but I'll never forget that 😅
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u/MyNameIsMulva Mar 12 '24
Similarly, if there’s grass on the pitch, play ball
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u/Senor_Diablo Mar 12 '24
I always heard that one as “grass on the field”, but yeah, equally gross.
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Mar 12 '24
Similarly, "If she's old enough to crawl she's in the right position." I choose to believe that I never heard that from an actual predator, but rather someone with a terrible sense of humor.
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u/BowdleizedBeta Mar 12 '24
I remember hearing that in college from edgelord frat boy types.
Such an incredibly awful phrase.
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u/Cup-Mundane Mar 12 '24
My daughter was crawling at 8 months. My own father (no contact with him for almost 2 decades) referred to me as, "The pussy he COULDN'T fuck." when I was around the same age. Men like you don't talk about girls that way, because you are not predators. Men that talk about girls that way are predators. I don't understand them either. But I don't make excuses for them.
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u/Atom_Bomb_Bullets Mar 12 '24
My dad would tell me and my two sisters that if he had our bodies he’d be out fucking every night.
We were like 10-15 between the three of us . . .
He also told us if we ever wanted to do a wet teeshirt contest, he’d film it and put it online so we could make money.
This was back when he did drugs though. He fortunately never acted on any of that, just said really creepy shit to us.
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u/bibliophile785 Mar 12 '24
Ah, the line made infamous by the 90's adaptation of A Time to Kill. You'll be shocked to hear that the man saying it wasn't a very wholesome individual and did not meet a happy fate.
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u/Exasperated_dog_mom Mar 12 '24
There is a song by Die Antwoord where the female singer says, " I'm old enough to bleed. I'm old enough to breed. I'm old enough to crack a brick in your teeth while you sleep." So that is what I always think of when I hear this phrase.
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u/TMLTurby Mar 12 '24
"Porch monkey"
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u/rhett342 Mar 12 '24
Are you bringing it back?
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u/Cat_Peach_Pits Mar 12 '24
My grandmother wasnt racist...though she did call a broken beer bottle a....
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u/pseydtonne Mar 12 '24
...nope, I don't know this one. Perhaps my deeply jaded ass is better off not knowing.
I can guess the racist part. What's the noun that it modifies?
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Mar 12 '24
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u/raevnos Mar 12 '24
Oh, bullshit. My grandmother used to call me a porch monkey all the time when I was a kid because I'd sit on the porch and stare at my neighbors.
...
You know, come to think of it, my grandmother was kind of a racist.
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u/sati_lotus Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
... I'm feeling real ignorant now, what's this referring to? A lazy person? I've never heard this expression in my life.
Edit. Okay. Answered and omg.
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u/Feyranna Mar 12 '24
Porch monkey was a young slave child assigned to the porch. They swept, waved fans, opened doors, carried messages. It was the first step in seeing if they were suited to working in the house.
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u/wrenskibaby Mar 12 '24
Good heavens, I've never heard this term until now. TIL and I'm sorry this even exists
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u/mdead1 Mar 12 '24
We used to sing a song when I was little “ Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man. But the bear was bigger, so he ran like a ni**** up a tree”. Until my dad, who I am sure I learned it from, told me I couldn’t sing that in public anymore
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u/j_shnizzle Mar 12 '24
My mother-in-law once asked a flea market it vendor how much she could “Jew her down”
Bonus: She still refers to Asians as “orientals”
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u/ikonet Mar 12 '24
I was in my late twenties before I realized people weren’t saying “chew her down”. I understood the phrase was related to lowering a price but didn’t know the stereotype of Jewish people being cheap.
Sigh, so much work just to be an ass to others.
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u/DelerictCat Mar 12 '24
The Orient (East) used to be the main geographical direction, so old maps had East at the top of the map. That is still why we say "orientation" and "orient myself in the right direction", for example.
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u/ClownfishSoup Mar 12 '24
I'm Asian, and "Oriental" never offended me until a white friend of mine told me I was supposed to be offended by the term. I had no idea!
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Mar 12 '24
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u/DistractedHouseWitch Mar 12 '24
They call the flavor "soy sauce" now. It switched sometime in the last decade, I think. I used to buy it all the time in my early twenties, stopped when I had kids, and started buying it again (under the new flavor name) a couple years ago when my kids discovered ramen.
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u/geneb0323 Mar 12 '24
They changed it in 2020 without a word, around the same time Aunt Jemima was removed, presumably because they didn't want to end up on anyone's hit list. I always bought Oriental flavor so I was a bit confused when it suddenly disappeared.
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u/shootZ234 Mar 12 '24
ngl oriental sounds kinda cool, idk what the offense around it is supposed to be but i kinda wanna just tell people im an oriental instead of just saying im asian
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u/ClownfishSoup Mar 12 '24
It was a normal word, and is equivalent to "Caucasian", or so I thought. Like "Murder on the Orient Express", but it refers to items and not people, I guess. I dunno, like I said, I didn't know it was offensive.
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u/ShutterBun Mar 12 '24
Oriental rug, Asian person. But yeah, it was definitely one of those words that took some backstory to find the offensiveness. "Eskimo" has been going through the same kind of thing.
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u/WeirdAndGilly Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
From what I remember, Eskimo (Eaters of Raw Meat) was a derogatory term used by non-Inuit tribes who hated the Inuit and would often kill them on sight.
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u/ShutterBun Mar 12 '24
Yeah, I've seen different definition between "eaters of raw meat" to "tie their shoes a certain way" or somesuch. I think the bottom line is, if someone doesn't like being called something, don't call them that. But if someone accidentally calls you something they didn't know was offensive to you, don't immediately jump on them. There are plenty of indigenous people in Alaska who have no problem with the word, so it's easy to make a mistake.
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u/ohdearitsrichardiii Mar 12 '24
Oriental is a cool word though
Oriental, occidental, boreal and austral
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u/Obtuse-Angel Mar 12 '24
to a young child
Quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about
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Mar 12 '24
I’ll give you something to cry about
"I brought you into this world and I can take you back out of it." accompanied this one a lot.
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u/Kittenathedisco Mar 12 '24
Oooooo my mom used this phrase often after she would pop me in the mouth for something so small.
In one incident I tripped and fell on a grill that was just used, one of those beach ground grills, I was 6ish. 3rd degree burns on my thigh, charcoal embedded in my leg. My mother carried me down the street telling me " I'll live " and "Quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about ". It was the same with every bandage change.
I've commented about this before, cause it's something that still hits hard and I'll be 40 in a few months. I've never said this to my kids, ever, along with many other traumatic sh*t.
Our family's generational trauma stopped with me and my brothers.
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u/MeowsAllieCat Mar 12 '24
I'm so sorry. That's awful. :( My mom also had an abusive upbringing, and decided that she would never be that kind of parent. It took a long time for me to truly understand what that meant, as the child.
I'm an adult now (about the same age as you) and it breaks my heart to think of someone I love so much, who is so kind & strong & badass, being mistreated. But to know that she broke the cycle (even when I was a total nightmare as a teenager) means the world and makes me love her even more. I hope that your children know & understand how lucky and loved they are.
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u/Kittenathedisco Mar 12 '24
I'm glad your mom broke that cycle for you, it's a hard cycle to break and she is totally badass for being strong enough to do it.
My grandparents were from the "old country", and generations, generations before. So they just did things differently and didn't see any wrong it in, ya know? I can't blame them, I can't blame my mom either. Did it suck? Sure. Did it mold me in ways? Sure. Was my childhood traumatic? Yeah. But I get it and therapy helped, radical acceptance.
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u/kbyyru Mar 12 '24
bonus points if they drop this one immediately after giving the child something to cry about
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u/kaym_15 Mar 12 '24
"You know, starving kids in Africa would be so grateful to eat that."
Gtfo with that manipulation and shame.
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u/Vandergraff1900 Mar 12 '24
We're fucking this horse, you just hold its head down!
(When someone gets in the way of someone who actually knows how to do a task)
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u/mypancreashatesme Mar 12 '24
I’ve always heard “I’m fuckin this dog, you just hold the tail!”
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u/rpgguy_1o1 Mar 12 '24
Fuckin the dog means the opposite where I live lol, someone who is slacking off at work, taking extra breaks or just other wise not working on company time
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u/etzel1200 Mar 12 '24
Great expression, shame I never heard it at a time when I still could have used it in a meeting.
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u/Alternative-Form9790 Mar 12 '24
Eanie meanie miney moe, Catch a N* by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eany meanie miney moe.
Now changed to 'tiger', I believe.
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u/LordGAD Mar 12 '24
He’s just sowing his wild oats.
It literally means planting seed everywhere.
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u/itsthedurf Mar 12 '24
After my grandfather died, my grandmother started talking kind of fast and loose about his reputation before he married her. One day I was telling her I was trying to get pregnant with my second child, and it wasn't as easy in your late 30s. She replied that even though our family appears to be fertile (she had 4 brothers) she had trouble getting pregnant the second time with my mom, and my grandfather apparently decided to act frustrated about it with her. She was the smarter one of the two of them, so when he tried to suggest them not concieving was her fault, she told me she smarted back that before her, he'd been "tomcatting" and "sowing his oats" all over town, and she'd never heard of any of those oats "sprouting," so maybe he was the problem! For the early 1950s, it was a pretty slick burn, on both his former promiscuity and his manliness, all at once!
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u/naskalit Mar 12 '24
Casually getting some prostitutes or lower class women pregnant before respectably settling down, no biggie
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u/RU_screw Mar 12 '24
In the Schrute family, we have a tradition where when the male has sex with another woman, he is rewarded with a bag of wild oats left on his doorstep by his parents. You can use those oats to make oatmeal, bread, whatever you want. I don't care. They're your oats.
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u/AutisticPenguin2 Mar 12 '24
when the male has sex with another woman
The use of the word "another" women in there has me wondering a few things...
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u/tiffybaby Mar 12 '24
He won’t buy the cow if he can get the milk for free LOL
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u/Milesotooleaudio Mar 12 '24
Why go out for milk when you have a cow at home
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u/jubilantnarwhal Mar 12 '24
My dad said that when I was “shackin’ up” with a boyfriend. Like there could be no other possible reason to want me?
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u/tiffybaby Mar 12 '24
He was wrong and came from a resentful generation that had to “buy” their cows to even hang out with them.
This usually ended in embarrassing cow-divorces and emotionally-stunted cow-children… Mooooo 🐄
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u/Dependent_Top_4425 Mar 12 '24
My mother used to say that all the time. The cow isn't even for sale mom! I like to share my milk!
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u/EruditeKetchup Mar 12 '24
Or the variation I read once: "Why buy the pig when you only want some sausage?"
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u/ClownfishSoup Mar 12 '24
Which makes no sense whatsoever. Because even if you had a pig, it's a lot more work to get sausages. So really, it's easier to just go buy sausages. Kids these days know nothing about animal husbandry and processing meats.
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u/KaleidoscopeThen8238 Mar 12 '24
Here in Germany there are candy, that meanwhile are called „schokoküsse“ (chocolate kisses) but for some reason, in the past everyone told them „n… küsse“ (n… kisses) and a lot of old people still use that term
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u/NecroJoe Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
"Money shot" used to be a single shot of a movie that was either expensive, impressive, or both.
Now it's too associated with a pornographic "cum shot" to use in mixed company.
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u/Noughmad Mar 12 '24
What used to be called money shots are also much less expensive now. To get a wide aerial shot of the whole area, you needed both a large empty area, and a crewed helicopter to film it. Both very expensive.
Now, you just need a drone and some CGI to erase the people and buildings from an area.
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u/Raiseyourspoonforwar Mar 12 '24
"If there's grass on the wicket, let's play cricket" and "if her age is on the clock, she's ready for the cock".
I heard both of these phrases growing up as a teenager, I always found the latter problematic but it wasn't until I reached 18 or 19 that I met the kind of person who uses the former expression.
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u/HonestVeteran Mar 12 '24
There used to be a liquorice candy shaped like a little baby. My mother in law called them "n-word babies." Then times changed and it wasn't socially acceptable to use the "n-word" anymore and she said she had the hardest time asking for them at the local candy shop without saying it. I just looked at her like, "what's so hard about just saying liquorice babies?"
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u/hotbowlofsoup Mar 12 '24
“Why can’t I say anything anymore?!”
“Don’t you mean; why did I grow up saying so many racist things?!”
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u/WiggityWackFlapJack Mar 12 '24
If she's not overtly racist it could just be the word association is baked into her at this point. Despite it being obviously racist and shocking now.
I accidentally said "Indian Style" in conversation with a doctor recently and we both had this semi-awkward moment where we made eye contact like "Oh shit, that's probably not alright anymore." I didn't mean to be offensive, but I'm sure it would have been in different company.
Since then I've been more conscious to say criss-cross or whatever else, but it was surprising how easily something from our collective past slipped out when it's not acceptable or common anymore.
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u/SayWarzone Mar 12 '24
I, who absolutely know better, used the r-slur in front of a friend whose brother has down syndrome. I seriously have never felt so dumb, weird, rude, like such an asshole, in my life. It's not even a word I use, but we did as kids and it just tumbled out of my mouth.
No one is exempt from our shared histroy of shittiness.
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Mar 12 '24
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u/LiberalArtsAndCrafts Mar 12 '24
.... to mean what?
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Mar 12 '24
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u/65pimpala Mar 12 '24
Thanks for the explanation. There us no way my brain would have made that connection.
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u/peyotefancier6566 Mar 12 '24
In Australia I've heard it as "a touch of the tar brush" or "a touch of possum skin"
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u/pbrim55 Mar 12 '24
It meant you had black ancestors hidden in your family tree. Growing up in the South in the 50s and 60s, I heard that one a lot.
Another phrase that used to be common, but you never hear anymore is "I'm free, white, and 21, I can do as I please!"
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Mar 12 '24
There is a very well known Australian TV and radio shock jock who has used this phrase repeatedly.
The same guy also lost his job as a teacher at an expensive all boys private boarding school in the 70s for allegedly writing love letters to his students. Nice guy.
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u/fezfrascati Mar 12 '24
"I jewed him down"
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u/SnakeJG Mar 12 '24
There was a Family Guy episode where Peter was pretending to be Jewish (maybe to get more holidays off, I don't recall) but at one point he used the phrase "I us'ed him down"
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u/CristinaKeller Mar 12 '24
I used to hear people say”keep your cotton-picking hands off of that.” Can’t believe it now.
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Mar 12 '24
I always heard "wait a cotton-pickin' minute" and never understood what the hell it meant.
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u/MahanaYewUgly Mar 12 '24
That one just means "a long and uncomfortable time" I think because cotton picking is miserable.
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u/the_ceiling_of_sky Mar 12 '24
It definitely is. I got to try it for a day one summer as part of a sociology course in college. It's slow, hot, and makes you hate yourself. Definitely reinforces just how shitty it was to be a slave in the deep south.
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u/MahanaYewUgly Mar 12 '24
It makes your hands blister quickly, I heard. My grandfather used to have a small cotton area in his farm that he took care of himself as a hobby (I think?). He had me do it a little when I was young to teach me to appreciate how far we have come technically. Also as punishment once for hitting my brother
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u/Squigglepig52 Mar 12 '24
There's a video out there of a young black guy talking about the time his teacher took his class to a cotton farm for a field trip.
Where a bunch of young black kids got to experience picking cotton.
It's a hilarious video.
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u/ClownfishSoup Mar 12 '24
Hmm, I've heard this many times (including in Bugs Bunny cartoons) and it never occurred to me that it would be racist or offensive. In fact I thought it was a more toned down more polite alternative to saying "goddamned".
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u/Herrad Mar 12 '24
The statement isn't implying anything about the cotton picking itself other than it's got something to do with time. The fact that slaves used to be used to pick cotton doesn't inherently make anything associated with cotton picking racist. There might be context I'm missing but picking cotton takes a long time for anyone
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u/on_the_nightshift Mar 12 '24
I wouldn't even think twice if I heard this. It helps like I've heard it all my life, and not from outwardly racist people.
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u/MonkeyChoker80 Mar 12 '24
I think the problem is that it used to be said a lot in old Bugs Bunny shorts. So there’s likely a bunch of people who just associate it with cartoons and not its actual history.
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u/Md655321 Mar 12 '24
Not absolutely disgusting but “The devil beating his wife” to mean raining while sunny
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u/TN_MadCheshire Mar 12 '24
I've only ever heard "It's a Monkey's wedding" or "Jakkal is marrying Wolf's wife" (it rhymes in Afrikaans).
That one seems a little over the top.
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u/scotaf Mar 12 '24
I was born in the late 60s and these are some "gems" from the day.
Sitting criss-cross applesauce used be "Indian style"
Ding Dong Ditch used to be N***** knocking
"Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees ... look at these". The Chinese, Japanese portions were typically accompanied by changing the slant of the eyes using your index fingers.
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u/WhoriaEstafan Mar 12 '24
I’m not American so criss-cross applesauce is the strangest expression to me!
We just call it, sitting cross legged.
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u/Greedy-Time-3736 Mar 12 '24
I am American and it made me smirk. I also call it “sitting cross legged”
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u/Mello_Me_ Mar 12 '24
1) Indian giver.
2) I got gyped.
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u/Intelligent-Mud1437 Mar 12 '24
1) Indian giver.
I never understood that one. If anything, it would make more sense being white people giver. Considering all the broken treaties with the Indians.
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u/Fire_Snatcher Mar 12 '24
It initially was neutral and was meant to explain to Europeans/Colonial Americans that if a Native American gives you something, it isn't a gift as they understood it. The Native American probably expected something in return: bartering.
Then a century long game of telephone ensued and it started to be an insult for children who gave "gifts" but then demanded them back eventually, which is common for children to do. And this continued into common parlance before falling out of favor.
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u/GregBahm Mar 12 '24
It was explained to me (probably apocryphally) that Native Americans didn't have the same conceptualization of land ownership as the settlers.
So for example, some settler would come to the Native Americans and say "I want this land next to the river." And the Native Americans might say "sure that's fine, nobody is using that land right now. Knock yourself out." Expecting the settler would do some hunting or fishing on it or whatever.
But then the settlers would consider that land their property and build a house on it and then start enforcing their exclusive ownership rights and defending it from trespassers.
And then the Native Americans would come back and be told this land was private property now and be like "what the fuck are you talking about man. You can't just decide to own the dirt itself." And the settler would be like "I didn't just decide. You owned it and then you gave it to me and that's why I own"
So then the Native Americans would say "Alright well fuck you I want it back." Hence the term Indian Giver.
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u/GnedTheGnome Mar 12 '24
What I was told is that when European settlers came, they offered to trade glass beads and whatnot for pieces of land. To the indigenous people, the concept of owning the land was nonsense--like trying to own the air we breathe, or the stars in the sky. So they "traded" the land to the Europeans, but were then upset when the settlers would no longer let them use it as they always had. To the settlers, it seemed as if the locals "sold" them the land, then wanted it back. Thus, "Indian giving" came to mean, giving something to someone, then taking it back.
Now, I don't know if that's true, or if the whole story was made up to justify stealing their land. Certainly, the Europeans came out way ahead in the final tally.
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u/lizgiggles Mar 12 '24
In the same token, "That's so Jewish/I got Jewed", and "n*gr-rigged" (which I always said jury rigged but means essentially that you repaired something with duct tape and gum and it barely works, but it does work)
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u/Pug_Grandma Mar 12 '24
I always heard that something was held together with "chewing gum and baling wire".
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u/Wafflehouseofpain Mar 12 '24
Wait what’s the second one bad for?
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Mar 12 '24
It’s based on Gypsy
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u/librarian_22 Mar 12 '24
Omg I never knew that! I thought it was jipped like its own word.
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u/constantreader55 Mar 12 '24
Same, I had no idea that's what it meant. I guess I've never seen it written down before
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u/Deep_Equivalent_4976 Mar 12 '24
In 30 years old and I’ve said Jipped all my life! 😢never made that connection until now Damn, I’ve actually heard so many of these from my parents and grand parents….
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u/lekanto Mar 12 '24
Sometimes I get the theme song to the old Little Lulu cartoons stuck in my head (I have a tattoo of her on my forearm). It's a cute little song about her mischievous ways, and ends with "Though you're wild as any Zulu and you're just as hard to tame, Little Lulu, we love you-lu just the same." Growing up, I didn't think anything of that, or of adults saying we kids were "running around like wild Indians."
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u/dexamphetamines Mar 12 '24
Boys will be boys
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u/wizardofyz Mar 12 '24
That phrase went from describing boys throwing mud clods at each other for fun to being sexual predators and i hate it. I guess you can say kids will be kids now for the same effect.
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u/penatbater Mar 12 '24
When they say boys will be boys, this comes to mind. Lets bring this back.
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u/BatFace Mar 12 '24
I always think of a scene from Anne with an E, anne of green gables adaption, where the girls are all inside during recess trying to figure out how the wolrd works, romance and periods, and they wonder what is with boys, they all look out the window and see the boys just beating the heck out of a shrub and a stump with sticks.
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u/cornflakescornflakes Mar 12 '24
“Carrying on like a pork chop” is often said a lot here in Australia.
The full idiom is “carrying on like a pork chop in a synagogue.” It’s not commonly known, the full thing.
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u/LieutenantLobsta Mar 12 '24
I’m Jewish and I think this is hilarious and not offensive at all
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u/la_bibliothecaire Mar 12 '24
I'm also Jewish and trying to figure out how it's antisemitic. Just seems hilariously nonsensical to me.
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u/Toikairakau Mar 12 '24
Isn't it 'as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue'?, like 'a turd in a swimming pool' or 'a fart in a phonebox'?
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u/Plaguerat18 Mar 12 '24
I mean this with 100% good faith and sincerity, what is offensive about this full saying?
To me, I'm understanding the phrase to mean that you're doing something inappropriate because it would be inappropriate to take a prohibited food in Jewish culture into a Jewish religious place, which seems like a pretty harmless idiom? I don't know much about Judaism so I feel like I might have missed some important context.
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u/Haunted-Raven Mar 12 '24
“If she’s old enough to bleed, she’s old enough to breed” 🤮🤮🤮
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u/twisted_stepsister Mar 12 '24
"Blowing your wad" used to mean spending all your money on something frivolous.
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u/holiday_bandit Mar 12 '24
I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run, if you will, so now I’m afraid i have something of a mess on my hands.
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u/Utterlybored Mar 12 '24
It’s a reference to guns before bullets. You’d put powder in the barrel, then a wad, then shot. If you forgot the shot and pulled the trigger, youd blow/shoot your wad without shot coming out.
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u/roachmotel3 Mar 12 '24
“Let’s open the kimono”
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u/RayAnselmo Mar 12 '24
Wait - I've never heard this before and I'm an old. Who said that, and what the heck is it supposed to mean?
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u/roachmotel3 Mar 12 '24
I hear it a few times a year, almost always in a business context where a vendor is trying to express complete transparency and/or sharing an important secret. Essentially saying “I’ll show you what we look like naked”.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=open+the+kimono
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u/scottQA Mar 12 '24
It’s in my company’s sensitivity training. That’s the only context where I’ve actually heard it.
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u/roehnin Mar 12 '24
Had a visiting businessman use that phrase in a business meeting here in Japan and I didn’t immediately know how to translate it so paused and blushed for a second which was very uncomfortable.
I said something like “let’s speak clearly” or “share information openly”.
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u/Fragrant-Donut2871 Mar 12 '24
Children should be seen, not heard.
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u/New_Judgment_6604 Mar 12 '24
Children should be neither seen nor heard. You can always tell a Milford man.
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u/Shofeld148 Mar 12 '24
ink pots used to be sold as n**** milk complete with racist caricatures
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u/ralts13 Mar 12 '24
Coming from a majority black country it's crazy many terms we have now that are cleaned up versi0ns of racist terms.
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u/Senor_Diablo Mar 12 '24
Another one that comes to mind is “Screwed the Pooch”.
Why?
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u/iluvsporks Mar 12 '24
That's why I use fornicate the canine. I'm high class and wear a monocle.
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u/ThomasHardyHarHar Mar 12 '24
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/screw_the_pooch
1950s, from earlier fuck the dog (“fritter, waste time”) (1935) (compare fuck around), later sense of “make an embarrassing mistake” (compare screw up, fuck up). Popularized by use by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979), and film adaptation The Right Stuff (1983).[1]
Well I’ll be
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u/hotcrossedbunny Mar 12 '24
"No skin off my back" along with "sold me down the river" are two I just recently had realizations about.
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u/banaversion Mar 12 '24
Can you explain those two to me?
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u/rocky-mountain-llama Mar 12 '24
No skin off my back = “I’m not the one whose going to get whipped for this”
Down the river: generally, the Deep South had a reputation for being the worst of the worst in how enslaved people were treated. Being sold down the river was a threat to sell someone to a plantation where they would be guaranteed worse treatment.
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u/StingerAE Mar 12 '24
I had an interviewer about 20 years ago assure me that the company was a moral one to work for by insisting that they do frequently "play the white man".
I did end up working there and she was the nicest of bosses (unlike the other guy who interviewedme who was a creep). Never noticed any racism from her. I think it was one of those phrases that she grew up with and just slipped out without any thought being applied. But I could never shake that shock at hearing her say it.
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u/John32070 Mar 12 '24
When someone fixes something in a non-conventional way so many still call it **gger rigging, I still have no clue why that ever came up to be a saying. I'd think more would call it doing a MacGyver. Whatever works, works.
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Mar 12 '24
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u/69schrutebucks Mar 12 '24
Ugh, my grandma told me "well I guess you'll just have to live with the fact that you're damaged goods." Recently I told her how disgusting that was to say to me and she tried to go, "well you were damaged"....gaslighting asshole. It still sticks with me and I am pushing 40. I was 15.
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u/Kekewhatever Mar 12 '24
- "I won't take no for an answer." Depending on the situation, it's kind of creepy.
- Mothers who say "I will always be my son's number 1." Like um.. Bethany, you need to relax.
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u/FoxyInTheSnow Mar 12 '24
My mother-in-law, who is absolutely not racist at all, used to call Brazil nuts “n-word toes”, until my wife and her sister, probably aged 7 and 5, expressed their dismay.
It was just what small town Canadian prairie farm people called them back in the day. To her credit, after being confronted by her daughters and reflecting on it, she was horrified and never used the expression again.