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Long-Lost Language Long-Lost Language Long-Lost Language Long Lost Language
Field & Stream! ^ | David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

Posted on 07/08/2012 1:17:48 PM PDT by djone

"One of the small things I like about hunting is that it takes you into the countryside where people say things you thought no one actually says anymore. Bits of old-fashioned speech hang on outside of town. Hearing them opens a little window into the past.--"Just remembered what the old folks would say if they hadn't seen you in awhile :Man I thought you fell in....'He's so tight, he squeaks when he walks.'..."He couldn't cut his way out of a wet paper bag with two butcher knives".....remembered another I always liked: my old landlord, a German farmer, used "young" for "small" so that when the neighbors touched off their initial volley on the opening morning of deer season, Seth commented "They've got a young war going on over there "

(Excerpt) Read more at fieldandstream.com ...


TOPICS: History; Humor
KEYWORDS: epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; lannguage; linguaperdita
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To: Revolting cat!

Deed by gawd Cap’n, is the most used around my parts,

But in this heat wave , Sweating like a ______going to election ,has been heard a lot.


21 posted on 07/08/2012 2:22:41 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: djone

My mother is always informing me after an especially busy day that she’s been “goin’ Jessie all day.” (Her name ain’t Jessie)


22 posted on 07/08/2012 2:24:12 PM PDT by Dysart (Race card is tyranny. Don't be cowed.)
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To: Revolting cat!

I learned this one from my late saintly mother when referring to someone she didn’t think was to bright.

“he’d give away his butt and crap through his ribs”

A little voluntary colostomy bag humor..


23 posted on 07/08/2012 2:27:23 PM PDT by glyptol
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To: djone

From my Mississippi upbringing...
“ So dry the fish have ticks”
“ She was so ugly she could squat on a tombstone and hatch haints”
“ Mosquitoes so big they can rear up on their hind legs and &%^$ turkeys”
“ Useless as a one legged man in an a$$-kicking contest”
“ Ill be on you like a duck on a June bug”
“ Hard as a preacher’s *^&% on Sunday”


24 posted on 07/08/2012 2:30:18 PM PDT by radioactivereb ("I'm tryin' to think but nothin' happens!"-Curly Howard)
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To: djone

Nervous as a cat sh-tt-n’ razor blades.

Lyin’ like a two bit whore.

Too big for his britchs.

Too smart for his own good.


25 posted on 07/08/2012 2:30:25 PM PDT by SolidRedState (I used to think bizarro world was a fiction.)
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To: djone

Worthless as tits on a boar hog.


26 posted on 07/08/2012 2:30:49 PM PDT by pallis
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To: taterjay
Dumber than a dirt clod.(or flat rock)

One expression which will never become obsolete as long as we continue to elect people like this to the U.S. Senate:
Patricia Bin Murray

27 posted on 07/08/2012 2:31:57 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: pallis

Skinny as a yard of pump water. Dumb as a box of rocks. A storm so bad it’s not fit to leave a grindstone out in it.


28 posted on 07/08/2012 2:46:14 PM PDT by squarebarb
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To: djone
"Busier than a young pup in tall oats."

"Uglier than a mud fence."

"Quicker'n you can spit and holler howdy."

I still hear these sayings and in their differing versions in my circles.

29 posted on 07/08/2012 2:53:50 PM PDT by Jagdgewehr (It will take blood)
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To: Vigilanteman

Well, I should have expected a picture of Senator “Osama Mama” Murray (D). I heard she had been voted by the senate pages as the dumbest senator. But the same could be said of Senator Barbara “dumber than a box of rocks” Boxer (D).

A dishonorable mention should also go to former Senator George Voinovich (R) of Ohio.


30 posted on 07/08/2012 2:54:57 PM PDT by Waryone
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To: djone

Eastern European guy who was a real card memorized hundreds of these things and would purposely drop them into conversations mangled just to get reactions from people. For the full affect, you have to imagine him saying these with a Boris Baddinof accent.

“Congratulations on success! Is really feather in your ear!”

“Life is hard! You must pull yourself by own jockstrap.”

There were a lot of others I’ve forgotten...


31 posted on 07/08/2012 2:56:25 PM PDT by Ronin (Dumb, dependent and Democrat is no way to go through life - Rep. L. Gohmert, Tex)
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To: Tax-chick

“I mentioned that I would listen to a certain actor reading the phone book. Who uses a phone book these days?”

Yes, I know what you mean.

And how about saying someone sounds “like a broken record”? Nobody younger that, what 40? would know what that meant.

And talk radio pioneer Bob Grant always says, when someone caves in to pressure, “he folded like a cheap camera”. I’m just old enough to know what that means, but too young to ever had had one of those cheap cameras.

“Drop a dime” (meaning to rat out to the authorities via an anonymous phone call) was dead once calls went to a quarter. I seem to remember the loss of the meaning of this expression was the major complaint about the cost increase. But now it makes no sense at all. Oh well, it’s so cool & alliterative maybe it will survive, people will just have to google its origns.

Like the phrase “lock, stock & barrel”. I always realized it meant “everthing included” but I always thought it referred to a store, which included the lock on the door, the stock on the shelves and even the pickle barrel. I still think of it that way, although I’ve since learned it refers to the parts of a rifle.

You can tell I grew up in NYC.


32 posted on 07/08/2012 3:45:17 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: jocon307

Shoot, it’s your nickle.
He was three sheets in the wind.
My eyes were bigger’n my stomach
She can talk the feathers off a blue jay
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Or what my great grand-daddy used to say “Bring me the liminint lizzie, my rutamizens actin up.


33 posted on 07/08/2012 4:21:55 PM PDT by ruesrose (It's possible to be clueless without being blonde.)
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To: taterjay

So poor I can’t even pay attention.

Happier than a dog with two d!*ks!

He’ll be a blowed up Jew! (My momma used to say that for about everything that might get someone hurt).

Filthy enough to gag a maggot!

Happier than a hog on ice.

Tighter than dick’s hat band! (I later found this was a reference to a condom).

It was a Mexican standoff! (Real meaning....I got whipped.)


34 posted on 07/08/2012 4:25:57 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (I LIKE ART! Click my name. See my web page.)
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To: Vigilanteman

Good point.


35 posted on 07/08/2012 4:28:24 PM PDT by taterjay
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To: djone

So stupid he couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel!


36 posted on 07/08/2012 4:30:33 PM PDT by hoagy62 ("Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered..."-Thomas Paine. 1776)
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To: hoagy62

My german grandmother had a sayin,,,”Kwitcherbitchen” I have no idea what it meant,,,


37 posted on 07/08/2012 4:33:50 PM PDT by Craftmore
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To: jocon307

My Speed Graphic (read: stereotypical classic newspaperman’s camera) would be insulted by that comparison....


38 posted on 07/08/2012 5:27:51 PM PDT by M1903A1 ("We shed all that is good and virtuous for that which is shoddy and sleazy... and call it progress")
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To: hoagy62
some old Maine expressions.....

smoother then a smelt....(A con artist or playboy)

skippin like a whore going to a carnival...(a car that's not running correctly)

going like a raped ape...(moving fast)

shes so ugly...the tide wouldn't take her out...

half a bubble out......3 cards short of a deck....got a screw loose....(someone dumb)

queerer then a 3 dollar bill....(gay)

dumber then dishwater.....

39 posted on 07/08/2012 7:17:17 PM PDT by M-cubed
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To: djone
The "Where was Moses when the lights went out?" was known to Mark Twain (Tom Sawyer asks it of Huck Finn).

Slower than molasses in January.

The wind was bloweing to beat the band.

40 posted on 07/08/2012 7:46:16 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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