Every family has a wealth of wisdom to share. Eventually, the sayings that our loved ones use become such an integral part of our everyday lives that it feels like the entire world should know what they’re talking about. Which can lead to a lot of fun.
Reddit user Tysmily asked the internet a very poignant question about what sayings people grew up with only to later find out that they were actually unique to their families. Check out the best, funniest, and most unexpected sayings below, dear Pandas. Remember to show the sayings you love the most your appreciation by giving them an upvote (we’re huge fans of the ‘we can’t afford monsters’ one) and let us know in the comment section if your family has any unique sayings, too!
Tysmily’s thread got over 49.9k upvotes and a whopping 149 awards which just goes to show that their fellow redditors really enjoyed the topic. We reached out to Tysmily to talk about their viral thread and Bored Panda also spoke about sayings and idioms with Mike Rock from the 'Know Your Phrase' website. "Idiomatic phrases can form at any time, including today. However, not all of them will reach popularity levels to where they become a part of everyday conversations," Mike said. Read on for our full interviews with him and with redditor Tysmily!
#61
C’est la vie. C’est la guerre. C’est la pomme de terre. (Such is life. Such is war. Such are potatoes. I know this isn’t the correct translation exactly but this is how we said it as well) I was very disappointed going on foreign exchange to France and my host family had never heard of this family favorite.
I still love potatoes though.
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15points
#62
When I was upset or complaining about something my mom would say “go tell it to the Marines.”
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14points
#63
When full from a good dinner, we would say "My sufficiency is suffoncified". Lol came from my grandpa on my dad's side.
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14points
#64
“Well that’s dumber than my last name!”
Literally thought all families said this, or at least it was a southern thing. Googled it. Nope.
Talked to my grandpa. Apparently our family’s last name had a “typo” and the worker at Ellis island wrote our last name incorrectly when my family migrated here hundreds of years ago.
He said he remembers HIS grandpa said the phrase too, so pretty sure it goes back hundreds of years and is my bloodlines oldest joke.
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14points
#65
My grandma has a million of these, and my husband always has to remind me that normal people don't know wtf I'm talking about when I use them. "Lord help us in a pile", "Crooked as a dog's hind leg", "Redder than a fox's ass in pokeberry time." And if you were having a bad hair day, it looked like you "crawled through a bush backwards."
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14points
#66
To this day, my dad says chow when saying good bye, which is probablyvery common. One day, we were ordering Chinese, and he saw chicken chow mein. Now he says "chow mein man" to my brother and I whenever we say good bye.
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13points
#67
If my Mom didn’t want us to touch something, she would say, “Don’t touch that! It’s icky poos!”. Me and my brother still laugh when one of us uses “icky poos” in front of each other.
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13points
#68
"Red shoes, no knickers."
My mum said this, that there's an implication women wearing red shoes weren't wearing any undies. Still haven't met anyone who has ever heard of it.
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12points
#70
My kids would say, “HAVE WE ALL LEARNED A VALUABLE LESSON??”
I used to say that all the time when they were growing up (I still do.) A good way to acknowledge that something went wrong without people getting all,tense about it.
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12points
#71
My grandfather had a few.
“Well, I’ll be Jim Brown” meant he was impressed by how f**ked up something could get. Frustrated
“When you were knee-high to a grasshopper” meant, when you were a little kid.
“Yeah, and if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass every time it hopped” when you theorized “if” something would happen that obviously wouldn’t.
He also pronounced Miami as “Myamma”, Wash as “Warsh” and Mosquitoes as “Skeeters”.
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12points
#73
My best friend's Dad has some interesting ones, the most memorable being : Wish in one hand, sh*t in the other, see which one fills up first - as a way of saying that you're being unrealistic
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12points
#75
Answering for my kids...
When they ask me where something of theirs is, I say, "I sold it...on eBay."
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11points
#76
"Let's went!" My parents lived in Holland for a few years before we were born, and I guess the translation of "let's go" in Dutch is "let's went" in English. They thought it was funny, so they just kept using it and we used it, too. I'm not 100% sure if the translation is right, but it just meant that every time we left the house, it was "okay, let's went!"
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10points
#77
My mom used to say one of the following when we were about to leave a family gathering.
“We are gonna make like a tree and leaf”
“Let’s make like a baby and head out”
We also used to call Walmart walsmart not sure why.
My dad when he would get upset or be frustrated at something he would say well that’s a pisser. He also would talk about himself in the third person if he was upset at himself mostly calling himself by our last name telling himself to get it together or “come on stupid” Lol.
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10points
#78
Whenever asked how you did something on the farm, the standard reply is "brute strength and awkwardness."
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10points
#79
Growing up whenever me or one of our siblings annoyed our parents we’d ask them if they loved us, my mom of course would always say yes but my dad would look us straight in the eye and say “Do I love you yes... do I like you absolutely not.” Then walk away. As we all got older we thought this was the funniest thing in the world but one time in my senior year of highschool I had my friends over and they heard it and go so concerned that my father was emotionally mistreating me
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9points
#80
When I say "fair enough" to my mum sometimes she responds with "there once was a fairy, called nuff"
Don't know if actually unique but I've never heard anyone else say it but her
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9points