From my mom, not my grandparents, but we've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one
"If I find it, can I hit you with it?"
Used when we were bugging her about not being able to find something. Don't believe she ever made good on that threat, but it usually did it's intended purpose of getting us to quit bugging her and find it ourselves. And if it was something we really needed help finding it would have been an acceptable trade-off.
My sister got a lot of use out of it with her college roommates and my wife and I use it with each other pretty regularly.
My grandpa had a million one liners, most were somewhat inappropriate but here's a fun one. He'd say, "Did anyone get hurt in that wreck?" To any of my friends that drove over. When they inevitably asked "what wreck?" He'd say, "the one you pulled up in." This was devastating to the ones who were super proud of their cars. Lol
When he was talking about turning 100: "I can't see, and I can't hear, but I can still eat so I'm not going to die."
He did indeed make it to 100.
"Who just shit my pants?"
When he wanted to remind us to turn off lights, he'd yell "save electrodes!"
When he was splitting wood with the "kabunger" (splitting maul) he'd yell "katabuungie!" When he swung.
When he'd drop wood on his toe he'd yell "GOTDAMMITSONOFABITCHGRAAH"
Anything bad happens:
My grandad: "FLAMING JACKSAWS AND BUCKETS OF BLOOD!"
He was never in a metal band that I'm aware of.
It's not so much a catch phrase, but words that I will always remember.
My grandmother was a WWII vet who came home and vowed to be a pacifist. She raised 7 kids before going back to school. She was at Kent State in 1970, working on her masters degree. She happened to be on the commons when bullets started flying.
She died ~2002. When we were cleaning out her belongings we came across a brown stained handkerchief in a plastic bag along with some news clippings. The clippings were her letter to the editor of the Akron Beacon Journal describing her experience on May 4th. The hanky had a little handwritten note that said "this is the blood of Allison Krause. Shed for many. May 4th, 1970".
My grandmother was an amazing woman who did so many great things after the war. You could easily write a movie about her accomplishments. But out of everything she did, the words on that little note made the biggest impact on who I would grow to be.
"A boat is a hole in the water you throw money in." - Grandpa
"It's like that for a while...then it gets worse." - Grandpa
"Even the worst pizza is still pretty damn good." - Grandpa
No idea if, or who, he may have stolen those sayings from but I'll always remember him for them.
"Never fear the sea, fear the storm."
"Getting old's not for pussies" - my Grandma
My grandfather would say “Is your daddy a glassmaker?” And when we’d inevitably say no, “Then get from in front the tv!” Meaning we were in his way, as children tend to be lol. Me and husband use this all the time with each other.
My grandpa whenever we scraped our knee or something: "You'll grow new bark"
All my grandparents passed when I was young and I didn't know them well. However, my uncle quotes his father quite a bit. General advice "Never do anything you wouldn't want to read about in the paper." Whenever he offers you something, or is jokingly telling you why you shouldn't do something "It will make your babies come out naked and screaming" Also my mom's side of the family has a common last name and my grandfather stated that if we met another person that shared our last name that we could accept them as family if they were "reasonably dressed, moderately sober, and not asking for money"
My Pop, whenever he was asked where something was: "It's in Annie's room, behind the clock." There was no Annie in our family, nor a bedroom with a clock you could put things behind.
Also my Pop whenever asked what something was: "It's a wig-wam for a goose's bridle."
These may not be iconic to anyone else, but they are sure as hell iconic in family lore, and us grand-kids are making sure we pass it down as much as we can.
When doing stuff, my grandfather would sometimes say:
"Even small things help", said the fly, and she pissed into the sea.
Always made me laugh.
My maternal grandfather said "By Jove" a lot.
My paternal grandfather had a lot of sayings: "here's me head, me arse is coming", "she walks with a bit of a run", etc - typing them out a lot had to do with the way people walked. There are more though.
My grandpa was german. In german,
jetztwhich in english would be pronounced something like “yetst”, means “now”. His whole life he would use “yet” in place of where an english-native speaker would say “now”, and i always thought that was adorable.“I’ve raised enough kids, I’m not raising grandkids too”
And that’s the story of how I never had a relationship with my grandparents
Some grandparents say "goodbye", my grandparents always departed with "Don't take any wooden nickels!"
When I die, just stick a ham bone up me ass and let the dogs carry me away.
My mother’s requests for us to calm down escalated over the years: “Cool your jets” “Don’t get your underwear in a wad” “Don’t get caught in your zipper”
"How'd you seem to be this morning?"
My grandfather: "Life is hard only for those who are soft."
i've heard my appalachian dialect speaking grandmother use the word "quit" in the like 1700's british sense of "to leave." that, and she used to say that she was going to do something "directly" like "we're going to the store, directly." such archaic speech patterns.
the word "appalachia" is pronounced "app uh latch uh" btw
Mom says that my great grandmother had a notorious potty mouth. Whenever she'd get up off the chair she'd yell "oh, this heavy ass of mine!" ("Ay, este culo tan pesado!")
"Tables are for glasses, not asses."
~ My grandpa, whenever someone sat on a table.My grandfather was always "fair to middlin'"
When they didn't get a hug first, we'd get "What am I, chopped liver."
The good old days weren't always so good
"Save every five minutes and never buy Packard Bell."
Not good luck, good management. Luck is not a strategy.
Talking about making plans and thinking ahead.
"Because God loves Ireland!" after any question they might no tknow the answer for
Whenever we got a minor injury like on our knee, he would tell us "I can hurt the other one so you can't tell which hurts more"
When we would go fishing, he always ended up sitting on a "barking spider"
The one I borrowed from him to great effect is "beer has water in it" whenever he was told to drink water
Everytime my Nana would send an email or leave a voicemail, she would sign off "Ciao for now!"
The same one I'm still using today: "Kill all Nazis."
"Pull my finger."
Whenever my Grandfather, a WWII combat veteran, saw something he didn't approve of: "The things you see when they don't let you carry a gun any more...".
My other Grandfather didn't really have any funny phrases, but my Nana when she didn't approve of something would just use the "Well, that's a how modern people do things I suppose". It was really the only complaint she'd make, the only time I ever saw her lose her temper with someone was the day I got into a traffic accident and she had to be physically restrained from going after the driver for hurting her grandchild hahaha (I was the passenger).
(Insert place) was so empty you could throw a cow through it!
From my grandma, Est la Fromage, such is cheese, sometimes it’s sweet, sometimes it’s bitter, sometimes it stinks like Limburger.
A whistling woman or a whistling hen, will drive the devil from his den.
(My wife's grandfather, not mine.)
Take me out back and shoot me.
Don't pass up the opportunity to have sex or take a shit: you'll always regret it.
I was raised by my grandparents.
My grandfather was the cook most of the time, and he was always trying new recipies he found online: in years, I don't think I ever saw him cook the same meal twice.
Everytime he'd taste something new, he'd enthusiastically comment "it's different than usual!" (Rough translation from French "ça fait changment!")
To this day, I have no idea how good or how bad he thought any of those dishes were.
It probably doesn't translate very well. But my grandfather always said something like "If you don't behave I'll put your head between your two ears" and us kids would always giggle and say that it was already the case. I often use that phrase now.
Dumb mistakes are called boners and all the kids and grandkids snicker
My gram used to quote MAD Magazine and Cracked with me all the time so that was pretty amazing. <3
“[Life is] only once around. Travel while you’re young.” -Grandma Violet
Good gravy!
Those who run don't see it, those who love don't mind it.
"Aki szalad nem látja, aki szeret nem bánja."
Basically strangers don't matter, your flaws wouldn't stick out to them. And your loved ones will accept you as you are.
"An old Indian taught me that." (Idk where I learned this)
"And we're off like a turd-of-hurdles/smelly underwear." (Underway)
"Oh, I know it!" (I agree whole-heartedly)
"(That's) big noise." (Nonsense)
"Slicker than dog snot!" (The bee's knees)
"It's colder than Christmas". For reference I live in TX, so it doesn't take much for it to be colder than Christmas (it's not uncommon for Christmas to be in the 80s F).
Not a phrase that my grandmother said, but one I said to her.
"Hey, Granny. I have a doozy for you."
Backstory:
My grandmother took pride in her Scrabble prowess. I spent a lot of summers growing up with her and she would always play cards, dominoes, or Scrabble with friends. She taught me, my siblings, and cousins all how to play. Thing is that she never took it easy on us, so we always got our butts handed to us when playing her.
Anyhow, I was in my mid 20s at the time and my grandmother was on the verge of beating me by 50 or so points. I was like whatever until I noticed something on the board. I looked at her, looked at the board, and looked at her again. I glared squarely in her eyes and said, "Granny, I have a doozy for you." Then I proceeded to put my tiles on the board with the word "doozy" landing on a triple word score and the "z" landing on a double letter score. An instant 84 points I think it was.
The way she looked at me was priceless. She looked at me like I stood up on the table, squatted, and took a dump on the board. I blew her butt out the water. She was not pleased. The funny thing was that she had the nerve to challenge the spelling on the off chance that it was "doozie" (which is an alternate spelling), so she lost her next turn on top of everything.
We never played again, but she was willing to take the joke in hand whenever I mentioned it... which was often. A year or so after that she passed after a couple of strokes.
Sorry if this is tldr. I tell this story once every few years or so to a friend, not for them, but to remind myself of her cause I really miss her A LOT. I haven't told anyone in a while.
So basically whenever I hear the word "doozy" in a sentence, I think of her and smile.
Judas Priest
