What are some memorable sayings your grandparents say or said?
Asked by
Bri_L (
12219
)
January 22nd, 2009
My grandpa used to get up to go to the bathroom and my grandma would say “where you going? and he would say “to water the horse, wanna hold its head?”
What are some you have?
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My grandma:
“Good morning, Sunflower.” I’m not a morning person, but more like a late afternoon person.
When I question or complain about the food she made she’d say “Eat it or eat shit.” I usually ate it.
My great-grandma:
...cursed in Spanish often.
My great-grandpa:
...always called me “Mija.”
When somebody’s shorts would ride up their crack, my grandpa would always say, “She/he must be hungry because they are eating their shorts.”
My grandma used to say “it’s better to have it & not need it, than to need it & not have it.” I guess that’s why I overpack when we go on vacation.
When my grandma came home at night most of the time she would say, “how do you always know when I’m drunk?”
My grandpa would often sit in the front room and yell, at the top of his lungs, ”I’M HUNGRYYYYYY!!!” To which grandma would reply, “I just told you I’m cookin’ it ya senile son of a bitch.” He would then turn purple from laughing so hard.
When Jehovah’s Witnesses would come to the door my grandpa would answer the door with a 12-gauge shotgun. He would point it at them and say, “Look you all better leave before my wife gets home. She really doesn’t like you people.”
Personal favorite…
My grandma was getting arrested for assault. (She hit my drunk aunt on the arm with a paint stirrer… weak.) As the cops were reading her her rights she said, “If I knew I was gonna get arrested for it I would’ve used a fucking baseball bat.”
Damn I love older people. They always seem to be able to get away with anything.
I can’t think of any sayings off the top of my head, but I loved it when my Grandmother would call me either ‘Sugar’ or ‘Pumpkin.’
In her southern accent, it came out as: sugah or punkin.
My grandmother used to say “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which gets filled first. Also whenever she saw someone grabbing at the seat of their pants she would say “Are you going to the movies? Because you’re picking your seat.”
My grandpa use to tell us to stop playing grab-ass. which just meant stop foolin around. And my grandma would always say something like, oh those pot lickers!
@dave – removed by me
It is possible you were just showing me the link so I might enjoy more of them. I did see that link but was more interested in memories and not popularity.
“You know Jonny, your shit ain’t dirty ‘til it hits the ground.”
“Don’t trust anyone—especially your roomate”. Thanks, Gramps.
I used the hate the grandparents saying all the time – “Children should be seen and not heard!”
“Ya can’t take care of noone till you take care’ve yerself first.” – grandpa
“Pretty is as pretty does, dear.” – grandma
“You can tell a lot about a person by two things: the inside of their refridgerator and the inside of their car!” – grandma (I love how it’s not how fancy your car or fridge is)
…and my grandpa would call all familiar boys and men “loverboy” and all familiar girls and women “sweetieface”.
Hard to answer this question on Fluther since most of what I heard was in Yiddish and not in English…....
shane punim
Gay avec
Toteleh
A laben uff dein keppele
SRM
I’ll take a guess at the first two, @srmorgan:
pretty funny-face
go away
Nothing good ever came after 2 am… After all, how do you think your father came around…
Thanks gramms.
Grandfather:
Continents are not discovered in the harbor.
The best defense is a well-aimed volley of your own.
He called me “little old lady.”
@Jeruba
Pretty face, handsome face. Funny doesn’t really fit.
Go away. SPOT ON
Toteleh, “little one” little darling>>
Last one, << a laben>> a blessing or a “love-tap(?) on your little head..
who is Jean-François Champollion?
SRM
I would say ” I hate how I look in this picture” and my grandma would say “how much better do you think you look in real life.
Also, when we would stay over she would sing:
Good morning to you, good morning to you, were all in our places with bright shiny faces, good morning to you, good morning to you
Then the all to often “Stop putting cotton swabs down my laundry shoot!”
Then, as of late, every time I call I pretend to be a different salesman and she says “Grandson you little shit”
Hmm…ok, @srmorgan. I’m not the expert, so I defer to you. I was recalling a long-ago Jewish boyfriend who took me to see La Strada (one of the all-time great films) at a revival in Harvard Square and said of Giulietta Masina, “That’s a real punim.” He explained that it was the Yiddish word for “face” but that it had a connotation of the face of someone who’s funny, funny-sad, or a character. Maybe there are ethnic and regional variations in use? His people were Eastern European.
Off-topic, Jean-François Champollion cracked the code of the Rosetta Stone.
Grandma was impatient so I would hear ‘shit or get off the pot’ alot.
wow…I never realized how fecund my grandparents were
I was going fertile-fertilizer-feces…Kevin Bacon comes in here somewhere…
He he… big words… heh… like feces and Kevin Bacon.
Rawk!
@srmorgan: Could you and I have had the same grandmother? (Jeruba and I apparently shared the same refrigerator in Cambridge.)
What about “Kaynahorah”? Pronounced in order to ward off the evil eye, especially when speaking of one’s good fortune.”
When I woke up she’d sing: “Good morning to you, good morning to you, we’re all in our places with sun-shining faces”. Now my dad has caught on, and horrible wake ups continue.
My zaidy would ask for a “sliver” of cake, meaning a really thin piece.
He also says “wowzers” a lot.
I think the most memorable thing my grandfather ever said was his last words. I’ll always remember him saying, “A truck!”
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”
“where are me teeth marjorie?””
My great grandmother was known for her sayings that my mother and her siblings use pretty much daily. “Shit or get off the pot”, “Stop standing over there with your thumb up your ass and do something!”
Probably something in Italian from them. Only ¼ isn’t Italian.
So tell us 1/4 of what they said then. Geez, how lazy can you be.
Can’t remember in general :D
There are too many. And You people would take them the wrong way.
My grandma used to say, ” I love you big gobs.” I miss that.
The early bird gets the worm, Darling.
She was always punctual & considerate of other person(s) time.
She got the job done before time
Dinner, sewing, kid events etc…
You name it & If she said she’s doing it -It was done!
It’s almost become a lost art today 09
:(
find a girl. love her. make babies. then die.
“get back in that bath ! the soap hasn’t even touched your fingers!”
“Honey, remember…never open wide for any one. Including the doctor.”
it’s nice to be nice
go suck on a raw egg
you’re a zero minus ten (hahah)
you are the apple of my eye
My mom would do or say something funny and I’d say “are you serious?”. She’d respond by saying, ” I wouldn’t shit my favorite turd” LMAO
Grandma had a lot of sayings, but the one that I have thought of the most is “you can’t put an old head on young shoulders.” I think of that every time I try to impart the benefit of my life experiences to my kids or grandkids.
My paternal grandfather, “Do you want to come with me to the pickle factory?”
(He bought a barrel’s worth at a time. Then he’d let me ride one of his great Danes.)
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