Three Dog Nights and A Day Older than God

I like expressions. Do you?

I like using them, I like discovering the origins. The other day my Mom used the expression “3 dog night.” My daughter hadn’t heard that one so I explained that it is a night so cold you need to let 3 of your (sled) dogs sleep with you for warmth. Cool, right? Or urm, warm.

My best friend at uni immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was just a pre-schooler. English was her parents’ second language, so English expressions were often new to her. Little did she know, her education in science would only be secondary to her education in English expressions with which I generously peppered our conversations. It usually went something like this:

me: That guy looks about a day older than God
her: What?! 
me: I said "That guy looks about a day older than God." It's an expression.
her: No it's not! I have never heard anybody say that! Never!
me: Seriously, it's an expression. People say it!
her: No they don't. Nobody says that but you.

A week or so later, she would hear it somewhere and then tell me “Hey, I heard that expression today! So weird!

This went on a lot. Then she started adding “I know I’ve said this before but this one really is just you!”

The only one I think she never heard from anyone but me was “to boot.” Please tell me you’ve heard “to boot!” She definitely thought I was either crazy or pulling the wool over her eyes on that one. (Oops! There I go again!) Speaking of wool, did you know that both English and Croatian have a expression similar to “A wolf wearing sheep’s clothing” Well now you do, you’re welcome. 🙂

Recently, my daughter found a post about weird things only your mother says. She could have had a heyday with that one. I had actually had said something the day before that she thought was weird but she couldn’t think of it. So we started racking our brains. She thought it had some thing to do with God…

me: When Christ was a Carpenter?
her: No.
me: A day older that God?
her: No.
me: Hotter than the hobs of Hell?
her: No.
me: Lord love a duck?
her: No.
me: Put the fear of God into?
her: No.
me: Jesus H. Christ?
her: No.
me: Good Christly God!?
her: No.
me: God's green earth?
her: No.
me: There but for the grace of God go I?
her: No.
me: Sure as God made little green apples?
her: No.
me: Christ on a bike?
her: Okay, can we please stop now?

See? I have A LOT of them. Possibly an annoying amount.

My family has adopted one we heard learned from an English series about anti-corruption police called Line of Duty. (If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend!) In one episode a frustrated Chief Inspector Hastings, could no longer take a stream of “no comments” and he muttered “Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey!” Oh that was a good one! We played it back several times and howled!

See how fantastic expressions are? They can make you laugh, they can get your frustration out, they can cause friendly debate, they can annoy your children and well, I think that’s better than a kick in the ass with a frozen boot!

xxxooo

Callie

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