Do you ever hear the sayings of those who raised you come into your mind or out of your mouth?
Asked by
msh (
4270
)
February 4th, 2016
from iPhone
My parents will live on for several more generations by means other than just DNA. Their words, sayings, citings and opinions are with me constantly. As they were most likely heard and passed along from their own parents.
After a particularly hard day into night, I got home and crashed in front of the television. Too exhausted to sleep, I flipped on the TV. After two rounds of my cable plan, I left it on a show I never would watch in the first place. Forty-five minutes later, credits rolling along with my eyes, I heard my parents! I was as surprised as if they were standing right there! I hear myself saying: “Well that was a waste of electricity…”
Who says that? Seriously? Where did that come from?
The past. It happens all the time. “Close the door! What, are we heating up the entire northwest portion of the city?” “Turn off the lights, who pays for the electricity around here?” “No, please, stand there looking for something a little longer- I was going to defrost it tomorrow anyway!” or “What did you do? What did you just do?”
I also remember some of the smart-butt answers to those questions. (It is amazing that humans don’t eat their young, as some animals do.)
What words or phrases do you hear from the past that come out of your mouth, or run through your mind without effort? Are you using the logic that was behind them- or is it just reflex from the past?
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19 Answers
Oh, yes. Sometime after I became a parent, I told my husband: I open my mouth and my mother walks out. With my husband, same thing, only it was his father.
I’m terrible at thinking of examples of things. My mind goes blank. But I know I was shocked at how automatic it was.
Some things, though, I swore I would never say, and I haven’t.
When I was young I had to eat what was served. I didn’t get a special meal.
Absolutely. I’m not a parent, and I still have plenty of sayings come out of my mouth that were said by my grandparents and parents. Not only that, but my husband says and does a lot of things my mom does by coincidence. I married my mother in some ways. Lol.
The things I say don’t shock me. It wasn’t like I hated every time my parents said those things and I swore them off.
And the opposite. I hear things that I said come out of my grandchildrens’ mouths… it makes me feel good that I had such an effect on them.
This is particularly heartening when I tell the grandkid (age 9) a silly joke and the next thing I know is that he is repeating it to his friends.
All the time!
And scarier still is that I hear my kids repeating them to my grandkids!
I recall my grandmother using many of the same sayings as my mom. Grandma was born in 1905 and I imagine she has recycled them from her gran. I think it is great. Little bits of insight from an earlier time.
One of my favorites: “You couldn’t see the river without you’d want to pee” and “Yer can’t get ‘owt fer n’owt.” and one I heard quite frequently; “And want can be yer master!” usually in response to a whine for some item that I was sure I couldn’t live without.
One of moms responses when I wanted to do something perhaps a little out of the ordinary was “Why not, yer a long time dead.”
YES, more and more with each passing year!! One of my late mom’s phrases I find increasingly useful when bumping into someone I should remember but don’t…
“I can’t quite call your name.”
Yeah, sometimes I’ll catch myself using some of my dad’s words and mannerisms. He was a really hard worker and he passed away and I miss him alot. Whenever someone would do something funny or say something strange he would just smile, shake his head and say “whatever, I guess?”
Sometimes I hear myself do that and it feels like I’m hearing my dad.
“Thank God!”
“For the love of God!”
“God-knows-what!”
“God forbid!”
“What in God’s name ___?!”
“Hope to God!”
“Goddammit!”
“God only knows!”
“There is a God!”
“God’ll get you for that!”
“God help me!”
What on God’s green earth?!”
“Oh my God!”
“God!”
Yep. All the time.
@dxs LOL. Do they/you believe in God?
@dxs – Did your parents know my parents? Add ‘girl’ onto some of those and.. Wow!
@JLeslie No, my parents and I are God. It’s this whole “three-in-one” thing that’s kinda confusing to explain.
Lol. Are you Scottish? Some of those sayings remind me of my Scottish BIL. My family uses God expressions too, although I cut back years ago when I found out it’s offensive to some people. My family isn’t Scottish, I think it’s a NY or northeast thing though also.
I pissed someone off here the other day by quoting my dad:
“How long is a stick?”
For when someone asks an impossible to quantify question, like, “How long does it take paint to dry?” “What percentage of my flowers will bloom?”
“No cigar.” I say this all the time, (short for “close but no cigar” if you haven’t heard the phrase before. Many people I say it to haven’t heard it before, though I thought it was pretty commonplace.) My mom says it. She has a lot of sayings, that’s just one of the ones that stuck out.
Also, “Smooth move exlax” whenever someone cut too close in front of her, or else made some other “slick” but dangerous move. For years I didn’t know what exlax was, then when she explained the whole meaning of the phrase to me I was astounded.
I use cardinal directions sometimes, because of my mom. She grew up on a farm, and that’s how they would indicate places to each other, the “north field” etc.
Others, though, I resist. I don’t say “is it Memorex?” when I mean “is it recorded or live TV?” She also always shortens Google’s “Android” to “Droid,” which makes me think of the HTC phone, so I don’t do that either.
Yep. Right there with those. Made me smile to read them. Thx!
When REALLY dismayed or pissed about something, my Jewish dad would use the Christian lord’s name to magnificent effect:
“JESUS H. CHRIST!!!”
I never knew what the H stood for but I’ve never heard any other curse word that was more expressive than the way Dad spat it out, including today’s ubiquitous F word, which I don’t recall his ever using.
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