My daddy had lots of funny sayings. The ones I remember most were teasing ones about a child getting in trouble.
I’m gonna tear you up like a sow’s bed.
I’m gonna cloud up and rain all over you.
Get out of in front of the tv, you’ve been drinking muddy water, I can’t see through you.
If you asked for something that you should know was impossible, he would say. You sound like somebody a limb fell on. There were lots more.
—Carol Durusau
I love all of the sayings from Carol’s daddy, but my favorite is the one about getting out of in front of the tv. What a colorful way to tell the kids to move 🙂
Carol reminded me that when someone is in the way of the tv we say “move you’re in my light.”
I don’t possess a quick wit when it comes to saying things, but I have been fortunate to be around folks who do have one. They are a lot of fun to be around—I’m sure Carol’s father was too.
Tipper
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I heard my dad say, when heard that a nice girl was waiting for a scoundrel boyfriend to arrive for a date, She’s a dollar waiting on a dime!
Thank you for featuring my father’s sayings. He was a lot of fun and always had a kind and funny way to make a point.
Carol
There were many funny sayings I heard when growing up. One that still makes me laugh to this day is.
When I was excited and talking very fast my grand dad would say “my word you must of been vaccinated with a victrola needle, slow down and take a breath.”
I heard that more than once.
My dad passed away in 2021 and I think about him a lot. I’ll hear somebody say something and it’ll remind me of the stuff he’d say. I remember when I was little, if I would leave the front door open when I went out my dad would always say, “Shut the door, were you raised in a barn?” I also would like to take toys apart to see how they were put together and he’d tell me that I’d tear up an anvil with a rubber hammer.
Daddy bought our first TV in Franklin from a shop that had been through a flood. The Little Tennessee got up and all the appliances were damaged. They cleaned this one out and got it working. We thought we had a bad signal out there up the creek but maybe they just didn’t get the screen cleaned good enough.
Breaking News Bulletin- Found 1hr ago, Mayfield Black Walnut ice cream in what was once a half gallon container on sale for $4. Found at local Ingles grocery store. Yea I did, I bought one and will buy some more, just needed to check on room in freezer. The expiration date was for some time in 2026.
A funny saying I remember “Flopping around like a fish out of water.” I have a friend nicknamed Catfish because of flopping around after running into fence while playing softball.
My dad passed away in1991. He was only 67. When I think of him (which is often) I always remember his silly sayings and the funny things he would do to make us laugh. He didn’t like us to pout – he would say, “Pick up your lip, before you step on your lip”. We lived close to the river. There were two different bridges we could take to get home (until the flood of ’72 took one of those bridges out). All 4 of us kids would be in the back seat of the old Ford. As we were going down a hill, approaching the bridge, he’d say, “I’m gonna close my eyes and see if we can make it over the bridge.” We’d all scream, “Open your eyes”. That bridge was washed out before I ever figured out he never had his eyes closed. I’m going to spend the rest of the day thanking God for both of my parents who are now gone. Thank you for your lovely post today.
Barbara, my Daddy passed away on Jan. 21, 1991, he was 68 years old. It was a Sat. Night, I was working the 3rd ( graveyard) shift when a coworker came to get me at 1:18 am. He told me I needed to come to the office, I told him there was no need, I knew what he wanted, you came to tell me my Daddy has died. I even remember what I was doing. I can’t explain why I remember that. Later on this same coworker told me I never understood how you knew what it was about until my Daddy died, then I understood. For the last years of Daddy’s life I cut every stick of firewood he burned to heat their home. Most of the stumps have now rotten but I never see one without thinking of him. He never wanted me to go to the woods without him going with me, he would turn up a block and sit on it and sometimes cry, and tell me it hurts to see you working for me on your day off, I would tell him I am just paying you back for all the things you did for me. I now understand how it feels to have to ask someone else to do things for you that you can no longer do.
Our people are witty and we say so many things. When people asked my daddy how he was, he always answered “finer’n a frog hair split and twisted”. He had so many sayings. If I was sick and looking bad he’d say, “well, you look like a dying calf in a hail storm”. Or if we had a headache he’d say, “a head like that orta ache”. Our whole family are jokie and witty….and ya have to be careful cause if people aren’t use to it you could hurt their feelings. I love all the sayings shared. I could share a many more, too. Love our ways and talk.
Continued prayers for all y’all!
My Dad would say you make a better door than a window.
I remember this one: When someone was confused or indecisive, turning one way and then another, it was said that he “looked like a blind dog in a meat house.”
I think I might be able to help.
The book you are looking for might well be “Appalachian Portraits by Shelby Lee Adams” and/or “Appalachian Legacy by Shelby Lee Adams” – the original book was published in 1993 and consists of photographs of the 9 families he followed and photographed for many years to preserve old Appalachia ways. It also includes photos of funerals and hog killings.
They are listed on Amazon but you might find a cheaper price at a used book shop online.
Here’s a description from Amazon: The eighty photographs collected in this book were taken over the course of a quarter-century. They are Adams’s study of people who give themselves honestly and openly before his camera. He focuses here on nine families that have been his recurring subjects during these years. His words that accompany the images reveal his long-term association with them and with their histories. Appalachian Legacy reflects the identity of Adams and his photography while capturing the indelible heritage of old Appalachia.
I hope this helps!
Planning on going to book signing in November at Granite Falls. So excited to meet you and Matt. Can’t wait to get a cookbook.
Praying for Granny and your family
The phrase in my family was always “I can’t see through you- your daddy wasn’t a glass maker.” That’s what Mamaw & Papaw would say to me and my 2 cousins if we were up & about in front of their big tv that was like a piece of furniture.
When it was time for us all to watch tv, we 3 kids usually sat or lay in the floor, far enough back from it that we didn’t block anyone’s view or we sat (rarely) on the sofa that was against the wall. When I had kids of my own, I would say “I can’t see through you- your daddy’s a cabinet maker, not a glass maker.”
My daddy told my grandson, he would wear out an iron horse. I’d never heard him say it til dementia had started. I found that interesting. ButterBean was thrashing toys around and just playing hard, daddy told him he’d probably tear a jail wall down just to go in and make a mess. Lordy, how I miss him and my Mother Goose.
‘if you moved any slower you’d be going backwards’ – you’re moving like a snowball rolling up hill’ – ‘you make a better door than a window’ are just a few I remember at the moment.
“Your daddy wasn’t a glass maker,” was the one I heard growing up when I was standing in the way of the tv.
When my grandmother was gossiping about how someone looked poorly she would sometimes say “Did you see ——? She looked liked she was fresh dug up.”
My daddy used to say, when we first got up in the morning, ” Lord have mercy chile, your head looks like a stump full of grandaddys”.
When my cousins and I were at my grandparents’ house and would get in front of the TV while my Pawpaw was watching it (which wasn’t hard because it was a gigantic wood encased floor model in a fairly small room), he would always say “you’re in my light”. He would sometimes change it up to say, “Your daddy wasn’t a glass maker!”.
He had several interesting ways of saying things. One I remember most often, although not witty, is him saying he had to “pay the juice bill”. That meant the electricity bill. “Cut the lights off, you’re running up the juice bill!”.
Anyone else heard of that?
My great-grandmother had a lot of sayings, many of which are unrepeatable! But a few of my favorites:
“For every old pot, there’s a lid,” “Dry as a popcorn fart,” and my absolute favorite, used when she tried to kill a bug or a snake and didn’t quite get it: “I might not have got him, but I sent him home talking to himself.”
When we were little sometimes Daddy would haul us in the car for a Sunday drive. If some bug got smashed across our windshield, Daddy would turn to us and say, “It took guts to do that”.
My Grandfather read the comics to me every day. There were two pages then. I would lean over the back of the sofa for one page and over the arm of the sofa for the other. I can still hear him saying, “You’re in my light.” and me looking up at the kerosene lamp on the mantle responding, “No, me not in you wight.” That was close to 80 years ago and it was probably 10 years later when I realized I was between him and the window.
I heard the ‘drinking muddy water’ and have used it some. Early mornings would sometimes get, ‘You look like something the cat drug in and the dogs wouldn’t eat.”
Hmmmm reckon maybe part of what is going on with those sayings was individualism and independence? I think maybeso not studied out foe effect but just an inclination to let the world know you think your own thoughts. My Grandma also told me and my brother we “would tear up an anvil” and another version was “tear up ironworks”. My Dad wasn’t much of a cut-up but he did have quite a few sayings. I don’t know if he ever made any up himself or not.
I still use a lot of the old sayings which my great grand children find amusing!
My Daddy could come up with funny sayings. I heard my father in law say this about his Daddy when had done something he shouldn’t do “I am going to whip you so hard and fast, you will think I am in your back pocket.”
I want to go back to yesterday and country stores. In my experience with the several country stores in my area, there was a feeling of love, friendship or some similar feeling between the owner and the customers. The C&K I mentioned was owned by a man and his wife, the wife Miss Earlene would give the neighborhood children a candy bar on their birthday and Halloween. The community loved these people and it was a sad day when they had to close the store because of their age and health.
I asked this question in my reply to I believe Jeffery. How many remember the square box like metal tanks kerosene would be stored in with the hand cranked pump. The pump had a metal rod that would be cranked down low and then cranked back to the top to measure out a gallon of kerosene.
I wonder what happened to all those kerosene dispensing tanks.
We had a 2-1/2 gallon kerosene can. As a small boy I could handle it whereas a 5-gallon can was too heavy.
Of course, the cap got lost and was replaced by a potato. Ever seen that done?
Potato? Didn’t have a corn cob?
Many times
My daddy said that about the TV, minus the muddy water. Back then I was his remote control.. I had to turn the TV up or down and change the channel. The worst part was having to turn the antenna outside, in the dark. Great memories!
Oh, yes, my daddy also had a lot of colorful sayings, often connected to the fact that he and mom produced only daughters. One of my favorites, when he would overhear us telling each other our dreams over breakfast was (with an eye roll), ‘the nocturnal wanderings of the female mind…’ When I was in the way of the door and he had both arms full, he’d say, ‘In this life you have to be either useful or ornamental and right now you don’t look too cute!’ He loved poetry and had hundreds committed to memory, so in the early morning when I would struggle bleary-eyed to the table, he’d recite,’Who is this that lights the wigwam? Wawatasi, little firefly,’ which always made me smile.
Mary, concerning the wandering of a female mind. I heard this said last night on the TV show The Rifleman “when a woman stops changing her mind it is time to take her to see a doctor.”
Awww. Sweet poem tidbit.
I’m blessed with two witty men. My Daddy and my Dad. They are so quick and funny.
I always heard “you make a better door than you do a window.”
When I was moving along slowly I got, “you’re dragging along like the dead lice are falling off you.”
I also heard “you’d tear up an anvil with a rubber hammer,” a lot.
Paul, we still say that saying about door and window. We say so many things we don’t recognize they are strange to others.
When slow, I’d get either “slow as molasses” or “let’s go, Moses.”