Weird phrases from where you live (or have lived) - AKA "colloquialisms!"

I remember my Grandmother, and other old folks in this part of Virginia, talk about someone being drunk as being "tighter then Dick's hatband". Never found out who Dick was. And let us not overlook "goddog" as a proper adjective for mixed company. As in "gimme the goddog thing".

Around here in Albany, some people used to say "steamed hams" for hamburgers, despite the fact that hamburgers are usually grilled. The expression is not used much outside of Albany, as far as I know. People in Utica don't even say it.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Oh... here's one: I have no idea where it came from; it might be Irish, might be something else, but whenever my Dad was driving and had to wait for a long time for a gap in a steady stream of traffic, he'd say "they're spaced out like Brown's cows!"

Who Brown is or why his cows are spaced out, I have no idea.

Has anyone heard that before?

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I'm a native Texan, lived here all my life. My Dad grew up on a farm, he would say when waiting for traffic to clear at a stop sign... "somebody close the gate!" Meaning there were too many cows I mean cars coming to safely go on so someone (up stream) needed to shut the gate and stop the flow

JustWondering2 said:

I'm a native Texan, lived here all my life. My Dad grew up on a farm, he would say when waiting for traffic to clear at a stop sign... "somebody close the gate!" Meaning there were too many cows I mean cars coming to safely go on so someone (up stream) needed to shut the gate and stop the flow

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Because you brought this thread up I just wasted over half an hour of my life going through all the pages.

I have to say, it's hard to believe NY is in the same country as where the people here come from.

How about "Done like a dog's dinner"

It has a couple of meanings but the one I know is it's a phrase to describe someone who is really really drunk/stoned.

NFN = Normal for Norfolk

"Cowboy up".

Stop whining and do what you have to do.

I remember my Grandmother & Granddad. They were both from small town Texas and lived most of their years in the country. When I was a kid they had a 100 acre farm NW of Fort Worth. I came to stay with them a lot, particularly in the summer. They had a lot of strange superstitions, but were salt of the earth good and caring people. One of the really funny words they used was "directly", as in: "granny when will dinner be ready?" she would simply say "directly" meaning shortly or soon. Only she would say it as "drkly" so I grew up thinking that was a word. I even used it myself growing up. Once when I was in my 20's or so someone asked me what I was saying, "you know drkly or soon", they replied do you mean "direct-ly" ? I had never thought of it that way before!!

Im in Dallas Tx I say Howdi sometimes, I also say yall quite abit, and sometimes yeehaw, and sometimes what in the cotton pickin something or another is he up to I say cotton pickin to a few different things what in cotton pickin is going on over there