Sayings and Expressions

[trimguy]

You need to get your ducks in a row.

[Southside]

All hat and no cattle.  

[Percy]

Tighter than a bulls a$$ at fly time.

[Tacotodd]

Lemme tell ya sumpin

This rat here 

Rat bout now 

Dat dare is purt near good

[HemlockKing]

Lemme tell ya sumpin

This rat here

Rat bout now

Dat dare is purt near good

What kind of hickville talk is that ? lol lol 

[Tacotodd]

Live in da south long enough and you'll here all kinds of goofy stuff. It makes sense if you sound it out, and sometimes even applies.

[PoginyHill]

Gommin' around - doing stuff, but with no real purpose or objective. I've only heard that term used in Maine.

[HemlockKing]

"Smoking life right down to the filter"- meaning not wasting anything/living life to fullest. I would be surprised if that was said anywhere but where I'm from 

[HemlockKing]

Hightail it outta here/there - leaving fast! 

Mosey on around- taking your time to look around 

[SawyerTed]

Mama is going to "skin you alive"  "tan your hide" "jerk a knot in your tail" "blister your bottom" 

You're going to get a switchin' for that!

Wait until your father gets home.  Then there is the proverbial trip out behind the woodshed. 

Dad says just before the paddling, "This is going to hurt me more than it will you, son."  I called BS on that more than 50 years ago! Just not to his face. :D

Son-in-law says he has a headache.  Father-in-law says, "If I had a head like that it would hurt too."

Even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes.  Meaning I was lucky. 

That fish is frozen stiffer than a board.

Hotter than a 2 dollar pistol.  Hotter than blue blazes.  

That car runs like a scalded dog.  It is fast.

She was so mad she could spit nails.

Green with envy. 

She talks a blue streak.   

That woman can wear out a broom.  She does a good job cleaning

Sorry, but I've got to go see a man about a dog.

We have to go back to the drawing board.

Your guess is a good as mine.

Under the weather.  Or as my uncle used to say, "Sick in bed with a nurse."

If you are going to split hairs!

I got away just by the skin of my teeth. 

This minnow is "deader that Kelsey's nuts."  I have no idea who Kelsey is or why he has this problem.  It was an expression used by a guide I fished with several years ago.

As I said to a Johns Hopkins University Professor who was trying to ascertain whether our workshop group was actually doing our assigned task or "laughing and cutting up",  "You just can't take this stuff too seriously."  The ambiguity dumbfounded her for a couple of moments, then she got serious and found out we actually did the task quite well.  

[WV Sawmiller]

    "Slicker than a greased pig"

    "Enjoying ill health" - typical British saying

    "She fell pregnant" - more British sayings that I never understood. 

[newoodguy78]

Sorry if I haven't offended you yet, give me a minute I'm working on it 

[WV Sawmiller]

"like one hound dog waits on another " - on sharing

[Ljohnsaw]

A dollar waitin' on a dime.  I razz my buddy with this all the time - he is so slow sometimes.

[WV Sawmiller]

  "I'm so hungry I could eat the A__ end out of a mule." - pretty hungry.

   "The apple of my eye." - favorite

   "tight enough to skin a flea for his tallow" - skinflint

   "Making a mountain out of a molehill" - exaggerating an issue/making a big problem out of a small issue.

[SawyerTed]

Eat'n speaks louder than words!  Briscoe Darling

Some's got it and some ain't.
Andy Taylor

[Southside]

Those sell for an SGU.

$300 in the old days.

[Bradm]

Tripping over dollars trying to save a dime.

[WV Sawmiller]

  "Scarce as hen's teeth" - pretty rare.

   "Snug as a bug in a rug" - pretty comfortable

   "His works medium " - not rare and not well done

   "Two bits" - 25 cents. A bit used to be 1/8th of one dollar

    "Penny wise and pound foolish" - does okay with the small stuff but not well on the big issues.

[hacknchop]

Father in law would tell me something was "fine as frog's hair" which apparently is "mighty fine".

Talk about cheap those guys invented copper wire fighting over a penny , they came to town with the 10 commandments and a $10 bill , they left town without breaking either.

[SawyerTed]

I once owned a suit that "collected everything but money and women."

There goes a sharp dressed man.

He's dressed to the nines. 

You clean up well.

Dressed to kill.

Boat = break out another thousand

Boat = a hole in the water to throw money into

Sight for sore eyes

Keep your eyes peeled 

If the devil danced in empty pockets he'd have a ball in mine

I'm so broke I can't even pay attention 

My wallet is like an onion, opening it makes me cry

[WV Sawmiller]

"Sleep tight - don't let the bedbugs bite" - with old fashioned rope beds (the mattress rested on a lattice of tightly stretched rope) the bedbugs could not stay on if the rope was stretched very tight.

"Crazy as a bedbug" - I don't know how sane a bedbug is supposed to be.

"Mad as a hatter" - apparently hat makers used mercury in the tanning process and the mercury caused insanity.

"Slick as a whistle" - I have no idea where this one came from

"Dumb as a bedpost"

"Deaf as a post" - huuhh? What did you say?

"Full as a tick" - Thanksgiving is coming - I bet you hear this a lot.

"Let sleeping dogs lay" - Leave things alone and don't make matters worse

[jimbarry]

"Who knit ya?" - Who's your parents?

[SawyerTed]

The paralysis of indecision

Think outside the box

Sawing off the limb you're standing on

Cut off you nose to spite your face

Nothing risked, nothing gained

He is well heeled.  Either carries a fine firearm or is wealthy.

Go jump in a lake

Go take a long walk on a short pier

Don't drive your boat toward anything any faster than you want to hit it.  

Blinder than a bat

When h311 freezes over

You want what?  And the people in Hades want ice water

Who licked the red off your candy?

Hope you ate your Wheaties this morning

Holy smokes Batman!  Something is fishy in Denmark.

All in due time

That joke is as old as Moses' toes and twice as corny

He's not fat, he's fluffy

Going barefoot early in the spring "You're pushing the season"

It's hard to fly with Eagles when you work with Turkeys.

You can have it cheap, you can have quick or you can have it right.  You can't have all three.

[SawyerTed]

Running balls out!  This isn't obscene, it means the balls on a steam engine governor are all the way out.  That would be top rpms. 

I'm going to crash.  Going to bed 

The water or wind is "dead ca'm"

Scared "5h!7less"

I was so scared I was petrified 

Happier than a pig in slop

Blinding flash of the obvious 

"Hey Ted, do you have a knife?"  Ted:  "Do I have my britches on?"

Driving like "a bat outta h311!"

She's a lead foot

You want to have your cake and eat it too 

If you don't like the weather here, wait five minutes.  It will change 

The tail is wagging the dog

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians. 

I don't know!  They treat me like a mushroom here.  They keep me in the dark and feed me manure.

Dingbat fishing. The term natives in Downeast Carteret County use to describe non-natives casting artificial baits.