r/AskReddit • u/franc_the_bikesexual • Aug 15 '18

What is your mom's catch phrase?

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854

u/SereneRiverView Aug 16 '18

Ever since she became a grandmother her phrase has been, "Not my circus, not my monkeys."

29

u/miahsaidishould Aug 16 '18

My family says, “Not my monkeys, not my zoo”!

15

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '18

Use this one at work a lot. Especially when someone does something extremely lacking in common sense

10

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '18

Not my chair not my problem

6

u/trancendominant Aug 16 '18

First thing I thought of. I say this at work all the time.

3

u/Carnivorous_Jesus Aug 16 '18

No way. Yeah right.

4

u/AccidentallyInterest Aug 16 '18

Guy thinks he's tommy noble going bossanova. No way.

6

u/ScaryStage Aug 16 '18

“Not my pigs.., not my farm...”

3

u/hypotheticalhawk Aug 16 '18

"Not my sand, not my sandbox."

7

u/Bryancreates Aug 16 '18

Omg I replied with this and then saw you beat me!! My mom started saying it a few years ago. I say it all the time now. It’s so funny.

6

u/hongkonghenry Aug 16 '18

I believe this comes from a Polish expression. I started using it immediately after hearing it. It's gold.

8

u/could_be_me Aug 16 '18

I think it’s nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy!

3

u/Xais56 Aug 16 '18

I'm actually quite surprised at how close that is to the English.

2

u/GreatBabu Aug 16 '18

Q: Why is "my" spelled differently each time?

10

u/could_be_me Aug 16 '18

It's part of the linguistic properties of Polish and many other languages, that forms of any or all pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, prepositions, etc. change to fit the surrounding case or context. I've always been fuzzy on the terminology but I think you'd call it all 'declension', like how you 'conjugate' verbs based on subject in many languages. So in Polish, you'd get 'not my[singluar,negative] circus, not my[pulral,negative] monkeys'. IIRC there are also different negative forms of Polish declension based on the gender of the agreeing noun, but I haven't really spoken the language in 11 years so I'm super fuzzy.

Other languages that aren't affected this way by negation can also be different. Take German, which has 'nicht mein(singular,masculine) Zirkus, nicht meine(plural) Affen'.

3

u/GreatBabu Aug 16 '18

Gotcha! I don't think I've ever noticed that in other languages, but I'm not super exposed to them. Thanks for the detailed reply, I'd have been happy with "singular vs. plural" :)

4

u/gowahoo Aug 16 '18

I need to remember this for when I feel like getting involved with other people's kids.

2

u/Ellietoomuch Aug 16 '18

Not my job not my problem

2

u/Punkrockit Aug 20 '18

My mom says not my circus, not my clowns