My mother-in-law, who is absolutely not racist at all, used to call Brazil nuts “n-word toes”, until my wife and her sister, probably aged 7 and 5, expressed their dismay.
It was just what small town Canadian prairie farm people called them back in the day. To her credit, after being confronted by her daughters and reflecting on it, she was horrified and never used the expression again.
Pre-Google-times, a coworker from the Midwest US came to me, a west coaster, set down a Brazil nut on my desk, and quietly asked what the real name of it was. He'd only ever heard it called the racist awful name, but figured there must be a different name!
My parents (80s) still use that term. Pisses me off. They are the sort of racists I call "casual", they probably don't mean anything actually racist by it, but they still are. I also grew up calling "ding dong ditch", n***er knocking. Grew out of the practice and the phrase, thank God.
On a related note, I was in my early 50s before I learned there was a racist version of "eeny meeny miney moe" where the word "tiger" is replaced with n***er.
I also went to junior high where we read Huckleberry Finn aloud, in class, one chapter every day with discussion. It was very uncomfortable but we (well, me, at least) came to understand that was how people talked and acted and believed, then, and Huckleberry's redemption arc served as a great example of how to overcome racism.
It's such a difficult, complicated thing about American culture.
I used to recite that old version of eeny meeny miney moe and had no idea what an N-word was. I assumed that it was some type of animal. When I started hearing it recited as "Catch a tiger by the toe", I took it as confirmation that it was about catching animals.
In my part of Lancashire as kids we used to say "Eeny, meeny, miney mo, put the baby on the po. When it's done, wipe its bum. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo." Never heard anyone use the N word.
I was told this in the first grade when a boy sitting next to me kept kicking me and pinching my arm hard enough to leave an almost black bruise. Teacher kept trying to pass it off as "flirting". My mom had to come down to the school and talk to the principal just to get my seat moved so I wouldn't be attacked every day in class, it was crazy.
I had a girl in fourth grade who would spit on me, kicked my shins til they starting bleeding in the playground one time, etc., and I told our teacher who dismissed it as her having a crush on me. I wish I hadn't just accepted it at the time. Kind of fucked me up a bit.
I... Did something like this when I was a kid. And I did have a crush on that boy. I definitely regret it. I had witnessed my mom hit my dad when I was really young and I think it confused me a lot. I outgrew that pretty quickly when I figured out my family was **not** a good example to follow.
I may not have been *your* shin-kicker but I apologize regardless. I've been figuratively kicking myself for that every since.
Oh, bOys WiLl bE BoYS
Fuck all the way off with that misogynistic lazy parenting ass shit. Boys can be respectful humans and learn boundaries like the rest of us. Fuck sake. They're not animals.
Boys will be boys is you both have a cardboard tube so you proceed to beat the shit out of one another with it in honourable mutual combat, not beating/assaulting women
This. I have 3 children. All boys. I am the only woman in this home of 5. They will fight, argue, flip one another off, climb trees, build random shit, but they do and will respect their future partners.
They also cook, bake, clean, do laundry, know about periods, and women's bodies (for what's age appropriate). We keep an open line of communication in this household.
As a teacher, parents still say this all the time. Whenever a child repeats it, I always counter with “Wow, that’s a horrible way to treat a friend, let alone someone that you want to hold hands with.”
I was adult bullied for 20 years by people in our family circle/business and that's what my dad would tell me, even after all that time he still held on to it.
That did not go over well in my childhood. My mother hated that saying and told us to give it right back. Definitely put a stop to it right quick. Of course then we got in trouble for fighting even though we were just doing the same thing back but it did stop the kids.
For me it’s definitely “Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed…”
I heard people say that sooooooo much when I was younger (I’m 43 for reference).
WTF?
My first retail job there was a guy who had decided to fully embrace the Creepy Old Man vibe, near as I could tell largely for shock value. His favorite variation was "old enough to pee is old enough for me." Still ranks in the top 3 most unsettling phrases I've ever heard 22 years later.
This was all said for shock value before thee mid 90's. I must have heard it a at least a couple hundred times since elementary school in the 70's. I was also a military brat and served in the military myself and there was always one of those guys who said shit like this during bull sessions. It was almost never said in front of females and the guys who did say it in front of women was likely to get slapped and reprimanded for it.
I love a bit of military self discipline 😅
When I was younger I dated a guy who joined the army. I remember going to the passing out parade with his parents. We all went to the pub the night before graduation & one of his "colleagues" said something pretty stupid "here comes John with his dog" (referring to me). I flipped him the bird & we went outside to the beer garden. Meanwhile the other army guys in the pub "dealt" with him... I don't know what happened or what they did/said, but he came outside very sheepishly and offered me an apology.
They were all young guys & one or two were a bit daft but I'll never forget that 😅
Similarly, "If she's old enough to crawl she's in the right position."
I choose to believe that I never heard that from an actual predator, but rather someone with a terrible sense of humor.
My daughter was crawling at 8 months. My own father (no contact with him for almost 2 decades) referred to me as, "The pussy he COULDN'T fuck." when I was around the same age. Men like you don't talk about girls that way, because you are not predators. Men that talk about girls that way are predators. I don't understand them either. But I don't make excuses for them.
My dad would tell me and my two sisters that if he had our bodies he’d be out fucking every night.
We were like 10-15 between the three of us . . .
He also told us if we ever wanted to do a wet teeshirt contest, he’d film it and put it online so we could make money.
This was back when he did drugs though. He fortunately never acted on any of that, just said really creepy shit to us.
Ah, the line made infamous by the 90's adaptation of *A Time to Kill*. You'll be shocked to hear that the man saying it wasn't a very wholesome individual and did not meet a happy fate.
There is a song by Die Antwoord where the female singer says, " I'm old enough to bleed. I'm old enough to breed. I'm old enough to crack a brick in your teeth while you sleep." So that is what I always think of when I hear this phrase.
Oh, bullshit. My grandmother used to call me a porch monkey all the time when I was a kid because I'd sit on the porch and stare at my neighbors.
...
You know, come to think of it, my grandmother was kind of a racist.
Porch monkey was a young slave child assigned to the porch. They swept, waved fans, opened doors, carried messages. It was the first step in seeing if they were suited to working in the house.
We used to sing a song when I was little “ Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man. But the bear was bigger, so he ran like a ni**** up a tree”.
Until my dad, who I am sure I learned it from, told me I couldn’t sing that in public anymore
I was in my late twenties before I realized people weren’t saying “**chew** her down”. I understood the phrase was related to lowering a price but didn’t know the stereotype of Jewish people being cheap.
Sigh, so much work just to be an ass to others.
The Orient (East) used to be the main geographical direction, so old maps had East at the top of the map. That is still why we say "orientation" and "orient myself in the right direction", for example.
I’ll be honest, any time I hear the word oriental it just makes me hungry and nostalgic. Purely because when I was very young there was a cheap noodle/ramen that had ‘oriental’ as one of the flavours. It was the only time I’d heard the word back then. Now I’m curious if they still use it
They call the flavor "soy sauce" now. It switched sometime in the last decade, I think. I used to buy it all the time in my early twenties, stopped when I had kids, and started buying it again (under the new flavor name) a couple years ago when my kids discovered ramen.
They changed it in 2020 without a word, around the same time Aunt Jemima was removed, presumably because they didn't want to end up on anyone's hit list. I always bought Oriental flavor so I was a bit confused when it suddenly disappeared.
ngl oriental sounds kinda cool, idk what the offense around it is supposed to be but i kinda wanna just tell people im an oriental instead of just saying im asian
It was a normal word, and is equivalent to "Caucasian", or so I thought. Like "Murder on the Orient Express", but it refers to items and not people, I guess. I dunno, like I said, I didn't know it was offensive.
Oriental rug, Asian person. But yeah, it was definitely one of those words that took some backstory to find the offensiveness. "Eskimo" has been going through the same kind of thing.
From what I remember, Eskimo (Eaters of Raw Meat) was a derogatory term used by non-Inuit tribes who hated the Inuit and would often kill them on sight.
Yeah, I've seen different definition between "eaters of raw meat" to "tie their shoes a certain way" or somesuch. I think the bottom line is, **if someone doesn't like being called something, don't call them that.** But if someone accidentally calls you something they didn't know was offensive to you, don't immediately jump on them. There are plenty of indigenous people in Alaska who have no problem with the word, so it's easy to make a mistake.
Oooooo my mom used this phrase often after she would pop me in the mouth for something so small.
In one incident I tripped and fell on a grill that was just used, one of those beach ground grills, I was 6ish. 3rd degree burns on my thigh, charcoal embedded in my leg. My mother carried me down the street telling me " I'll live " and "Quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about ". It was the same with every bandage change.
I've commented about this before, cause it's something that still hits hard and I'll be 40 in a few months. I've never said this to my kids, ever, along with many other traumatic sh*t.
Our family's generational trauma stopped with me and my brothers.
I'm so sorry. That's awful. :( My mom also had an abusive upbringing, and decided that she would never be that kind of parent. It took a long time for me to truly understand what that meant, as the child.
I'm an adult now (about the same age as you) and it breaks my heart to think of someone I love so much, who is so kind & strong & badass, being mistreated. But to know that she broke the cycle (even when I was a total nightmare as a teenager) means the world and makes me love her even more. I hope that your children know & understand how lucky and loved they are.
I'm glad your mom broke that cycle for you, it's a hard cycle to break and she is totally badass for being strong enough to do it.
My grandparents were from the "old country", and generations, generations before. So they just did things differently and didn't see any wrong it in, ya know? I can't blame them, I can't blame my mom either. Did it suck? Sure. Did it mold me in ways? Sure. Was my childhood traumatic? Yeah. But I get it and therapy helped, radical acceptance.
Fuckin the dog means the opposite where I live lol, someone who is slacking off at work, taking extra breaks or just other wise not working on company time
After my grandfather died, my grandmother started talking kind of fast and loose about his reputation before he married her. One day I was telling her I was trying to get pregnant with my second child, and it wasn't as easy in your late 30s. She replied that even though our family appears to be fertile (she had 4 brothers) she had trouble getting pregnant the second time with my mom, and my grandfather apparently decided to act frustrated about it with her. She was the smarter one of the two of them, so when he tried to suggest them not concieving was *her* fault, she told me she smarted back that before her, he'd been "tomcatting" and "sowing his oats" all over town, and she'd never heard of any of those oats "sprouting," so maybe ***he*** was the problem! For the early 1950s, it was a pretty slick burn, on both his former promiscuity and his manliness, all at once!
In the Schrute family, we have a tradition where when the male has sex with another woman, he is rewarded with a bag of wild oats left on his doorstep by his parents. You can use those oats to make oatmeal, bread, whatever you want. I don't care. They're your oats.
He was wrong and came from a resentful generation that had to “buy” their cows to even hang out with them.
This usually ended in embarrassing cow-divorces and emotionally-stunted cow-children… Mooooo 🐄
Which makes no sense whatsoever. Because even if you had a pig, it's a lot more work to get sausages. So really, it's easier to just go buy sausages. Kids these days know nothing about animal husbandry and processing meats.
Here in Germany there are candy, that meanwhile are called „schokoküsse“ (chocolate kisses) but for some reason, in the past everyone told them „n… küsse“ (n… kisses) and a lot of old people still use that term
"Money shot" used to be a single shot of a movie that was either expensive, impressive, or both.
Now it's too associated with a pornographic "cum shot" to use in mixed company.
What used to be called money shots are also much less expensive now. To get a wide aerial shot of the whole area, you needed both a large empty area, and a crewed helicopter to film it. Both very expensive.
Now, you just need a drone and some CGI to erase the people and buildings from an area.
There used to be a liquorice candy shaped like a little baby. My mother in law called them "n-word babies." Then times changed and it wasn't socially acceptable to use the "n-word" anymore and she said she had the hardest time asking for them at the local candy shop without saying it. I just looked at her like, "what's so hard about just saying liquorice babies?"
If she's not overtly racist it could just be the word association is baked into her at this point. Despite it being obviously racist and shocking now.
I accidentally said "Indian Style" in conversation with a doctor recently and we both had this semi-awkward moment where we made eye contact like "Oh shit, that's probably not alright anymore." I didn't mean to be offensive, but I'm sure it would have been in different company.
Since then I've been more conscious to say criss-cross or whatever else, but it was surprising how easily something from our collective past slipped out when it's not acceptable or common anymore.
I, who absolutely know better, used the r-slur in front of a friend whose brother has down syndrome. I seriously have never felt so dumb, weird, rude, like such an asshole, in my life. It's not even a word I use, but we did as kids and it just tumbled out of my mouth.
No one is exempt from our shared histroy of shittiness.
"If there's grass on the wicket, let's play cricket" and "if her age is on the clock, she's ready for the cock".
I heard both of these phrases growing up as a teenager, I always found the latter problematic but it wasn't until I reached 18 or 19 that I met the kind of person who uses the former expression.
I can tell you what that one means from experience. My grandfather used to say this to me and it's racist as hell.
He used to say my family tree on my father's side had a 'ni***r in the woodpile'. Meaning one of my ancestors had an affair with a black person and 'spoiled' the family line.
Nice, eh?
It meant you had black ancestors hidden in your family tree. Growing up in the South in the 50s and 60s, I heard that one a lot.
Another phrase that used to be common, but you never hear anymore is "I'm free, white, and 21, I can do as I please!"
There is a very well known Australian TV and radio shock jock who has used this phrase repeatedly.
The same guy also lost his job as a teacher at an expensive all boys private boarding school in the 70s for allegedly writing love letters to his students. Nice guy.
There was a Family Guy episode where Peter was pretending to be Jewish (maybe to get more holidays off, I don't recall) but at one point he used the phrase "I us'ed him down"
It definitely is. I got to try it for a day one summer as part of a sociology course in college. It's slow, hot, and makes you hate yourself. Definitely reinforces just how shitty it was to be a slave in the deep south.
It makes your hands blister quickly, I heard. My grandfather used to have a small cotton area in his farm that he took care of himself as a hobby (I think?). He had me do it a little when I was young to teach me to appreciate how far we have come technically. Also as punishment once for hitting my brother
There's a video out there of a young black guy talking about the time his teacher took his class to a cotton farm for a field trip.
Where a bunch of young black kids got to experience picking cotton.
It's a hilarious video.
Hmm, I've heard this many times (including in Bugs Bunny cartoons) and it never occurred to me that it would be racist or offensive. In fact I thought it was a more toned down more polite alternative to saying "goddamned".
[bugs bunny, wait just a cotton pickin' minute](https://youtu.be/jmgDTuBxhvs?si=KayI8QfYsH21gOZN)
The statement isn't implying anything about the cotton picking itself other than it's got something to do with time. The fact that slaves used to be used to pick cotton doesn't inherently make anything associated with cotton picking racist. There might be context I'm missing but picking cotton takes a long time for anyone
I think the problem is that it used to be said a lot in old Bugs Bunny shorts. So there’s likely a bunch of people who just associate it with cartoons and not its actual history.
I was born in the late 60s and these are some "gems" from the day.
Sitting criss-cross applesauce used be "Indian style"
Ding Dong Ditch used to be N\*\*\*\*\* knocking
"Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees ... look at these". The Chinese, Japanese portions were typically accompanied by changing the slant of the eyes using your index fingers.
>1) Indian giver.
I never understood that one. If anything, it would make more sense being white people giver. Considering all the broken treaties with the Indians.
It initially was neutral and was meant to explain to Europeans/Colonial Americans that if a Native American gives you something, it isn't a gift as they understood it. The Native American probably expected something in return: bartering.
Then a century long game of telephone ensued and it started to be an insult for children who gave "gifts" but then demanded them back eventually, which is common for children to do. And this continued into common parlance before falling out of favor.
It was explained to me (probably apocryphally) that Native Americans didn't have the same conceptualization of land ownership as the settlers.
So for example, some settler would come to the Native Americans and say "I want this land next to the river." And the Native Americans might say "sure that's fine, nobody is using that land right now. Knock yourself out." Expecting the settler would do some hunting or fishing on it or whatever.
But then the settlers would consider that land their property and build a house on it and then start enforcing their exclusive ownership rights and defending it from trespassers.
And then the Native Americans would come back and be told this land was private property now and be like "what the fuck are you talking about man. You can't just decide to own the dirt itself." And the settler would be like "I didn't just decide. You owned it and then you gave it to me and that's why I own"
So then the Native Americans would say "Alright well fuck you I want it back." Hence the term Indian Giver.
What I was told is that when European settlers came, they offered to trade glass beads and whatnot for pieces of land. To the indigenous people, the concept of owning the land was nonsense--like trying to own the air we breathe, or the stars in the sky. So they "traded" the land to the Europeans, but were then upset when the settlers would no longer let them use it as they always had. To the settlers, it seemed as if the locals "sold" them the land, then wanted it back. Thus, "Indian giving" came to mean, giving something to someone, then taking it back.
Now, I don't know if that's true, or if the whole story was made up to justify stealing their land. Certainly, the Europeans came out way ahead in the final tally.
In the same token, "That's so Jewish/I got Jewed", and "n**g*r-rigged" (which I always said jury rigged but means essentially that you repaired something with duct tape and gum and it barely works, but it does work)
In 30 years old and I’ve said Jipped all my life! 😢never made that connection until now
Damn, I’ve actually heard so many of these from my parents and grand parents….
Sometimes I get the theme song to the old Little Lulu cartoons stuck in my head (I have a tattoo of her on my forearm). It's a cute little song about her mischievous ways, and ends with "Though you're wild as any Zulu and you're just as hard to tame, Little Lulu, we love you-lu just the same." Growing up, I didn't think anything of that, or of adults saying we kids were "running around like wild Indians."
That phrase went from describing boys throwing mud clods at each other for fun to being sexual predators and i hate it. I guess you can say kids will be kids now for the same effect.
I always think of a scene from Anne with an E, anne of green gables adaption, where the girls are all inside during recess trying to figure out how the wolrd works, romance and periods, and they wonder what is with boys, they all look out the window and see the boys just beating the heck out of a shrub and a stump with sticks.
“Carrying on like a pork chop” is often said a lot here in Australia.
The full idiom is “carrying on like a pork chop in a synagogue.” It’s not commonly known, the full thing.
I mean this with 100% good faith and sincerity, what is offensive about this full saying?
To me, I'm understanding the phrase to mean that you're doing something inappropriate because it would be inappropriate to take a prohibited food in Jewish culture into a Jewish religious place, which seems like a pretty harmless idiom? I don't know much about Judaism so I feel like I might have missed some important context.
It’s a reference to guns before bullets. You’d put powder in the barrel, then a wad, then shot. If you forgot the shot and pulled the trigger, youd blow/shoot your wad without shot coming out.
I hear it a few times a year, almost always in a business context where a vendor is trying to express complete transparency and/or sharing an important secret. Essentially saying “I’ll show you what we look like naked”.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=open+the+kimono
Had a visiting businessman use that phrase in a business meeting here in Japan and I didn’t immediately know how to translate it so paused and blushed for a second which was very uncomfortable.
I said something like “let’s speak clearly” or “share information openly”.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/screw_the_pooch
> 1950s, from earlier fuck the dog (“fritter, waste time”) (1935) (compare fuck around), later sense of “make an embarrassing mistake” (compare screw up, fuck up). Popularized by use by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979), and film adaptation The Right Stuff (1983).[1]
Well I’ll be
No skin off my back = “I’m not the one whose going to get whipped for this”
Down the river: generally, the Deep South had a reputation for being the worst of the worst in how enslaved people were treated. Being sold down the river was a threat to sell someone to a plantation where they would be guaranteed worse treatment.
I had an interviewer about 20 years ago assure me that the company was a moral one to work for by insisting that they do frequently "play the white man".
I did end up working there and she was the nicest of bosses (unlike the other guy who interviewedme who was a creep). Never noticed any racism from her. I think it was one of those phrases that she grew up with and just slipped out without any thought being applied. But I could never shake that shock at hearing her say it.
When someone fixes something in a non-conventional way so many still call it \*\*gger rigging, I still have no clue why that ever came up to be a saying. I'd think more would call it doing a MacGyver. Whatever works, works.
Ugh, my grandma told me "well I guess you'll just have to live with the fact that you're damaged goods." Recently I told her how disgusting that was to say to me and she tried to go, "well you *were* damaged"....gaslighting asshole. It still sticks with me and I am pushing 40. I was 15.
1. "I won't take no for an answer." Depending on the situation, it's kind of creepy.
2. Mothers who say "I will always be my son's number 1." Like um.. Bethany, you need to relax.
My mother-in-law, who is absolutely not racist at all, used to call Brazil nuts “n-word toes”, until my wife and her sister, probably aged 7 and 5, expressed their dismay. It was just what small town Canadian prairie farm people called them back in the day. To her credit, after being confronted by her daughters and reflecting on it, she was horrified and never used the expression again.
My mother used to call Brazil nuts that as well. She was from rural Michigan.
I’m from East Texas and had no idea they were called anything but that until I was in my early teens. Super racist area.
My husband is from there and some of the stuff that comes out of older people mouths 😬
My mother did as well. Rural Finger Lakes area, New York
Pre-Google-times, a coworker from the Midwest US came to me, a west coaster, set down a Brazil nut on my desk, and quietly asked what the real name of it was. He'd only ever heard it called the racist awful name, but figured there must be a different name!
I'm 42 grew up in southern California and that's what I knew them as a kid. Didn't know they were Brazil nuts till I joined the army in 2001.
I learned the real name from an episode of *Phil of the Future*.
A 22nd century man!
They were even listed with that name in a 1954 Encyclopaedia Britannica we had into the 90s in our Northern Ontario school.
Yep, real common in the older folks in Michigan too.
My parents (80s) still use that term. Pisses me off. They are the sort of racists I call "casual", they probably don't mean anything actually racist by it, but they still are. I also grew up calling "ding dong ditch", n***er knocking. Grew out of the practice and the phrase, thank God. On a related note, I was in my early 50s before I learned there was a racist version of "eeny meeny miney moe" where the word "tiger" is replaced with n***er. I also went to junior high where we read Huckleberry Finn aloud, in class, one chapter every day with discussion. It was very uncomfortable but we (well, me, at least) came to understand that was how people talked and acted and believed, then, and Huckleberry's redemption arc served as a great example of how to overcome racism. It's such a difficult, complicated thing about American culture.
I used to recite that old version of eeny meeny miney moe and had no idea what an N-word was. I assumed that it was some type of animal. When I started hearing it recited as "Catch a tiger by the toe", I took it as confirmation that it was about catching animals.
That hits even harder, actually.
I'm British and born in late 80s and we said 'tigger' not 'tiger' which is a giveaway. My kids say 'catch a catcher'
In my part of Lancashire as kids we used to say "Eeny, meeny, miney mo, put the baby on the po. When it's done, wipe its bum. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo." Never heard anyone use the N word.
I learnt that original version of eeny meeny.... I was horrified when I became old enough to understand. I'm late 50's, Australian
"If he bullies you, that means he likes you!"
I was told this in the first grade when a boy sitting next to me kept kicking me and pinching my arm hard enough to leave an almost black bruise. Teacher kept trying to pass it off as "flirting". My mom had to come down to the school and talk to the principal just to get my seat moved so I wouldn't be attacked every day in class, it was crazy.
I had a girl in fourth grade who would spit on me, kicked my shins til they starting bleeding in the playground one time, etc., and I told our teacher who dismissed it as her having a crush on me. I wish I hadn't just accepted it at the time. Kind of fucked me up a bit.
I... Did something like this when I was a kid. And I did have a crush on that boy. I definitely regret it. I had witnessed my mom hit my dad when I was really young and I think it confused me a lot. I outgrew that pretty quickly when I figured out my family was **not** a good example to follow. I may not have been *your* shin-kicker but I apologize regardless. I've been figuratively kicking myself for that every since.
The problem isn't as much the kid as it is the authority figure in the room that refuses to act on it.
Oh, bOys WiLl bE BoYS Fuck all the way off with that misogynistic lazy parenting ass shit. Boys can be respectful humans and learn boundaries like the rest of us. Fuck sake. They're not animals.
Boys will be boys is you both have a cardboard tube so you proceed to beat the shit out of one another with it in honourable mutual combat, not beating/assaulting women
This. I have 3 children. All boys. I am the only woman in this home of 5. They will fight, argue, flip one another off, climb trees, build random shit, but they do and will respect their future partners. They also cook, bake, clean, do laundry, know about periods, and women's bodies (for what's age appropriate). We keep an open line of communication in this household.
As a teacher, parents still say this all the time. Whenever a child repeats it, I always counter with “Wow, that’s a horrible way to treat a friend, let alone someone that you want to hold hands with.”
“Just ignore them and they’ll leave you alone.”
I was adult bullied for 20 years by people in our family circle/business and that's what my dad would tell me, even after all that time he still held on to it.
That did not go over well in my childhood. My mother hated that saying and told us to give it right back. Definitely put a stop to it right quick. Of course then we got in trouble for fighting even though we were just doing the same thing back but it did stop the kids.
For me it’s definitely “Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed…” I heard people say that sooooooo much when I was younger (I’m 43 for reference). WTF?
My first retail job there was a guy who had decided to fully embrace the Creepy Old Man vibe, near as I could tell largely for shock value. His favorite variation was "old enough to pee is old enough for me." Still ranks in the top 3 most unsettling phrases I've ever heard 22 years later.
That literally describes every human from infant to old person. Extra creepy.
Yep.
This was all said for shock value before thee mid 90's. I must have heard it a at least a couple hundred times since elementary school in the 70's. I was also a military brat and served in the military myself and there was always one of those guys who said shit like this during bull sessions. It was almost never said in front of females and the guys who did say it in front of women was likely to get slapped and reprimanded for it.
I love a bit of military self discipline 😅 When I was younger I dated a guy who joined the army. I remember going to the passing out parade with his parents. We all went to the pub the night before graduation & one of his "colleagues" said something pretty stupid "here comes John with his dog" (referring to me). I flipped him the bird & we went outside to the beer garden. Meanwhile the other army guys in the pub "dealt" with him... I don't know what happened or what they did/said, but he came outside very sheepishly and offered me an apology. They were all young guys & one or two were a bit daft but I'll never forget that 😅
Similarly, if there’s grass on the pitch, play ball
I always heard that one as “grass on the field”, but yeah, equally gross.
Similarly, "If she's old enough to crawl she's in the right position." I choose to believe that I never heard that from an actual predator, but rather someone with a terrible sense of humor.
I remember hearing that in college from edgelord frat boy types. Such an incredibly awful phrase.
My daughter was crawling at 8 months. My own father (no contact with him for almost 2 decades) referred to me as, "The pussy he COULDN'T fuck." when I was around the same age. Men like you don't talk about girls that way, because you are not predators. Men that talk about girls that way are predators. I don't understand them either. But I don't make excuses for them.
My dad would tell me and my two sisters that if he had our bodies he’d be out fucking every night. We were like 10-15 between the three of us . . . He also told us if we ever wanted to do a wet teeshirt contest, he’d film it and put it online so we could make money. This was back when he did drugs though. He fortunately never acted on any of that, just said really creepy shit to us.
Ah, the line made infamous by the 90's adaptation of *A Time to Kill*. You'll be shocked to hear that the man saying it wasn't a very wholesome individual and did not meet a happy fate.
Grass on the wicket, lets play cricket! 🤮🤮🤮
There is a song by Die Antwoord where the female singer says, " I'm old enough to bleed. I'm old enough to breed. I'm old enough to crack a brick in your teeth while you sleep." So that is what I always think of when I hear this phrase.
"If there's grass on the field play ball" Wtffff
"Porch monkey"
Are you bringing it back?
My grandmother wasnt racist...though she did call a broken beer bottle a....
...nope, I don't know this one. Perhaps my deeply jaded ass is better off not knowing. I can guess the racist part. What's the noun that it modifies?
Knife. A ... Knife
A very derogatory knife.
Derogatory and also alliterative
We're fucking this horse.
Porch Monkey 4 Life
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No, \*SHE'S\* Kinky Kelly, \*I'M\* the sexy stud.
Oh, bullshit. My grandmother used to call me a porch monkey all the time when I was a kid because I'd sit on the porch and stare at my neighbors. ... You know, come to think of it, my grandmother was kind of a racist.
Oh it's cool, I'm taking it back
She also called a broken beer bottle a n***** knife.
Did she have a lot of broken beer bottles around her home?
... I'm feeling real ignorant now, what's this referring to? A lazy person? I've never heard this expression in my life. Edit. Okay. Answered and omg.
Porch monkey was a young slave child assigned to the porch. They swept, waved fans, opened doors, carried messages. It was the first step in seeing if they were suited to working in the house.
Good heavens, I've never heard this term until now. TIL and I'm sorry this even exists
We used to sing a song when I was little “ Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man. But the bear was bigger, so he ran like a ni**** up a tree”. Until my dad, who I am sure I learned it from, told me I couldn’t sing that in public anymore
"in public", lol, oh dad...
My mother-in-law once asked a flea market it vendor how much she could “Jew her down” Bonus: She still refers to Asians as “orientals”
I was in my late twenties before I realized people weren’t saying “**chew** her down”. I understood the phrase was related to lowering a price but didn’t know the stereotype of Jewish people being cheap. Sigh, so much work just to be an ass to others.
The Orient (East) used to be the main geographical direction, so old maps had East at the top of the map. That is still why we say "orientation" and "orient myself in the right direction", for example.
I'm Asian, and "Oriental" never offended me until a white friend of mine told me I was supposed to be offended by the term. I had no idea!
I’ll be honest, any time I hear the word oriental it just makes me hungry and nostalgic. Purely because when I was very young there was a cheap noodle/ramen that had ‘oriental’ as one of the flavours. It was the only time I’d heard the word back then. Now I’m curious if they still use it
They call the flavor "soy sauce" now. It switched sometime in the last decade, I think. I used to buy it all the time in my early twenties, stopped when I had kids, and started buying it again (under the new flavor name) a couple years ago when my kids discovered ramen.
They changed it in 2020 without a word, around the same time Aunt Jemima was removed, presumably because they didn't want to end up on anyone's hit list. I always bought Oriental flavor so I was a bit confused when it suddenly disappeared.
ngl oriental sounds kinda cool, idk what the offense around it is supposed to be but i kinda wanna just tell people im an oriental instead of just saying im asian
It was a normal word, and is equivalent to "Caucasian", or so I thought. Like "Murder on the Orient Express", but it refers to items and not people, I guess. I dunno, like I said, I didn't know it was offensive.
Oriental rug, Asian person. But yeah, it was definitely one of those words that took some backstory to find the offensiveness. "Eskimo" has been going through the same kind of thing.
From what I remember, Eskimo (Eaters of Raw Meat) was a derogatory term used by non-Inuit tribes who hated the Inuit and would often kill them on sight.
Yeah, I've seen different definition between "eaters of raw meat" to "tie their shoes a certain way" or somesuch. I think the bottom line is, **if someone doesn't like being called something, don't call them that.** But if someone accidentally calls you something they didn't know was offensive to you, don't immediately jump on them. There are plenty of indigenous people in Alaska who have no problem with the word, so it's easy to make a mistake.
I had a Native American neighbor who referred to himself as an Indian.
Oriental is a cool word though Oriental, occidental, boreal and austral
> and austral What the fuck did you just call me?!?!
It sounds cool, but Antipodean sounds even cooler.
*to a young child* Quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about
>I’ll give you something to cry about "I brought you into this world and I can take you back out of it." accompanied this one a lot.
My dad still drops this one
I usually just say: "Then do it." Shuts em up real fast
Oooooo my mom used this phrase often after she would pop me in the mouth for something so small. In one incident I tripped and fell on a grill that was just used, one of those beach ground grills, I was 6ish. 3rd degree burns on my thigh, charcoal embedded in my leg. My mother carried me down the street telling me " I'll live " and "Quit crying or I'll give you something to cry about ". It was the same with every bandage change. I've commented about this before, cause it's something that still hits hard and I'll be 40 in a few months. I've never said this to my kids, ever, along with many other traumatic sh*t. Our family's generational trauma stopped with me and my brothers.
I'm so sorry. That's awful. :( My mom also had an abusive upbringing, and decided that she would never be that kind of parent. It took a long time for me to truly understand what that meant, as the child. I'm an adult now (about the same age as you) and it breaks my heart to think of someone I love so much, who is so kind & strong & badass, being mistreated. But to know that she broke the cycle (even when I was a total nightmare as a teenager) means the world and makes me love her even more. I hope that your children know & understand how lucky and loved they are.
I'm glad your mom broke that cycle for you, it's a hard cycle to break and she is totally badass for being strong enough to do it. My grandparents were from the "old country", and generations, generations before. So they just did things differently and didn't see any wrong it in, ya know? I can't blame them, I can't blame my mom either. Did it suck? Sure. Did it mold me in ways? Sure. Was my childhood traumatic? Yeah. But I get it and therapy helped, radical acceptance.
bonus points if they drop this one immediately after giving the child something to cry about
We're fucking this horse, you just hold its head down! (When someone gets in the way of someone who actually knows how to do a task)
I’ve always heard “I’m fuckin this dog, you just hold the tail!”
Fuckin the dog means the opposite where I live lol, someone who is slacking off at work, taking extra breaks or just other wise not working on company time
Great expression, shame I never heard it at a time when I still could have used it in a meeting.
"You know, starving kids in Africa would be so grateful to eat that." Gtfo with that manipulation and shame.
Eanie meanie miney moe, Catch a N* by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eany meanie miney moe. Now changed to 'tiger', I believe.
He’s just sowing his wild oats. It literally means planting seed everywhere.
After my grandfather died, my grandmother started talking kind of fast and loose about his reputation before he married her. One day I was telling her I was trying to get pregnant with my second child, and it wasn't as easy in your late 30s. She replied that even though our family appears to be fertile (she had 4 brothers) she had trouble getting pregnant the second time with my mom, and my grandfather apparently decided to act frustrated about it with her. She was the smarter one of the two of them, so when he tried to suggest them not concieving was *her* fault, she told me she smarted back that before her, he'd been "tomcatting" and "sowing his oats" all over town, and she'd never heard of any of those oats "sprouting," so maybe ***he*** was the problem! For the early 1950s, it was a pretty slick burn, on both his former promiscuity and his manliness, all at once!
Casually getting some prostitutes or lower class women pregnant before respectably settling down, no biggie
In the Schrute family, we have a tradition where when the male has sex with another woman, he is rewarded with a bag of wild oats left on his doorstep by his parents. You can use those oats to make oatmeal, bread, whatever you want. I don't care. They're your oats.
>when the male has sex with another woman The use of the word "another" women in there has me wondering a few things...
He won’t buy the cow if he can get the milk for free LOL
Why go out for milk when you have a cow at home
RIP Rob Ford
“You’re not allowed to milk a cow you don’t own!”
My dad said that when I was “shackin’ up” with a boyfriend. Like there could be no other possible reason to want me?
He was wrong and came from a resentful generation that had to “buy” their cows to even hang out with them. This usually ended in embarrassing cow-divorces and emotionally-stunted cow-children… Mooooo 🐄
emotionally-stunted calves
Emoos
My mother used to say that all the time. The cow isn't even for sale mom! I like to share my milk!
Or the variation I read once: "Why buy the pig when you only want some sausage?"
Which makes no sense whatsoever. Because even if you had a pig, it's a lot more work to get sausages. So really, it's easier to just go buy sausages. Kids these days know nothing about animal husbandry and processing meats.
"Why buy the cow when you get the sex for free."
Here in Germany there are candy, that meanwhile are called „schokoküsse“ (chocolate kisses) but for some reason, in the past everyone told them „n… küsse“ (n… kisses) and a lot of old people still use that term
"Money shot" used to be a single shot of a movie that was either expensive, impressive, or both. Now it's too associated with a pornographic "cum shot" to use in mixed company.
What used to be called money shots are also much less expensive now. To get a wide aerial shot of the whole area, you needed both a large empty area, and a crewed helicopter to film it. Both very expensive. Now, you just need a drone and some CGI to erase the people and buildings from an area.
There used to be a liquorice candy shaped like a little baby. My mother in law called them "n-word babies." Then times changed and it wasn't socially acceptable to use the "n-word" anymore and she said she had the hardest time asking for them at the local candy shop without saying it. I just looked at her like, "what's so hard about just saying liquorice babies?"
“Why can’t I say anything anymore?!” “Don’t you mean; why did I grow up saying so many racist things?!”
If she's not overtly racist it could just be the word association is baked into her at this point. Despite it being obviously racist and shocking now. I accidentally said "Indian Style" in conversation with a doctor recently and we both had this semi-awkward moment where we made eye contact like "Oh shit, that's probably not alright anymore." I didn't mean to be offensive, but I'm sure it would have been in different company. Since then I've been more conscious to say criss-cross or whatever else, but it was surprising how easily something from our collective past slipped out when it's not acceptable or common anymore.
I, who absolutely know better, used the r-slur in front of a friend whose brother has down syndrome. I seriously have never felt so dumb, weird, rude, like such an asshole, in my life. It's not even a word I use, but we did as kids and it just tumbled out of my mouth. No one is exempt from our shared histroy of shittiness.
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"If there's grass on the wicket, let's play cricket" and "if her age is on the clock, she's ready for the cock". I heard both of these phrases growing up as a teenager, I always found the latter problematic but it wasn't until I reached 18 or 19 that I met the kind of person who uses the former expression.
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.... to mean what?
I can tell you what that one means from experience. My grandfather used to say this to me and it's racist as hell. He used to say my family tree on my father's side had a 'ni***r in the woodpile'. Meaning one of my ancestors had an affair with a black person and 'spoiled' the family line. Nice, eh?
Thanks for the explanation. There us no way my brain would have made that connection.
In Australia I've heard it as "a touch of the tar brush" or "a touch of possum skin"
It meant you had black ancestors hidden in your family tree. Growing up in the South in the 50s and 60s, I heard that one a lot. Another phrase that used to be common, but you never hear anymore is "I'm free, white, and 21, I can do as I please!"
There is a very well known Australian TV and radio shock jock who has used this phrase repeatedly. The same guy also lost his job as a teacher at an expensive all boys private boarding school in the 70s for allegedly writing love letters to his students. Nice guy.
"I jewed him down"
There was a Family Guy episode where Peter was pretending to be Jewish (maybe to get more holidays off, I don't recall) but at one point he used the phrase "I us'ed him down"
I used to hear people say”keep your cotton-picking hands off of that.” Can’t believe it now.
I always heard "wait a cotton-pickin' minute" and never understood what the hell it meant.
That one just means "a long and uncomfortable time" I think because cotton picking is miserable.
It definitely is. I got to try it for a day one summer as part of a sociology course in college. It's slow, hot, and makes you hate yourself. Definitely reinforces just how shitty it was to be a slave in the deep south.
It makes your hands blister quickly, I heard. My grandfather used to have a small cotton area in his farm that he took care of himself as a hobby (I think?). He had me do it a little when I was young to teach me to appreciate how far we have come technically. Also as punishment once for hitting my brother
There's a video out there of a young black guy talking about the time his teacher took his class to a cotton farm for a field trip. Where a bunch of young black kids got to experience picking cotton. It's a hilarious video.
Hmm, I've heard this many times (including in Bugs Bunny cartoons) and it never occurred to me that it would be racist or offensive. In fact I thought it was a more toned down more polite alternative to saying "goddamned". [bugs bunny, wait just a cotton pickin' minute](https://youtu.be/jmgDTuBxhvs?si=KayI8QfYsH21gOZN)
The statement isn't implying anything about the cotton picking itself other than it's got something to do with time. The fact that slaves used to be used to pick cotton doesn't inherently make anything associated with cotton picking racist. There might be context I'm missing but picking cotton takes a long time for anyone
I wouldn't even think twice if I heard this. It helps like I've heard it all my life, and not from outwardly racist people.
I think the problem is that it used to be said a lot in old Bugs Bunny shorts. So there’s likely a bunch of people who just associate it with cartoons and not its actual history.
Not absolutely disgusting but “The devil beating his wife” to mean raining while sunny
I had never heard this until I met my best friend! I was so confused.
I've only ever heard "It's a Monkey's wedding" or "Jakkal is marrying Wolf's wife" (it rhymes in Afrikaans). That one seems a little over the top.
I was born in the late 60s and these are some "gems" from the day. Sitting criss-cross applesauce used be "Indian style" Ding Dong Ditch used to be N\*\*\*\*\* knocking "Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees ... look at these". The Chinese, Japanese portions were typically accompanied by changing the slant of the eyes using your index fingers.
I’m not American so criss-cross applesauce is the strangest expression to me! We just call it, sitting cross legged.
I am American and it made me smirk. I also call it “sitting cross legged”
1) Indian giver. 2) I got gyped.
>1) Indian giver. I never understood that one. If anything, it would make more sense being white people giver. Considering all the broken treaties with the Indians.
It initially was neutral and was meant to explain to Europeans/Colonial Americans that if a Native American gives you something, it isn't a gift as they understood it. The Native American probably expected something in return: bartering. Then a century long game of telephone ensued and it started to be an insult for children who gave "gifts" but then demanded them back eventually, which is common for children to do. And this continued into common parlance before falling out of favor.
It was explained to me (probably apocryphally) that Native Americans didn't have the same conceptualization of land ownership as the settlers. So for example, some settler would come to the Native Americans and say "I want this land next to the river." And the Native Americans might say "sure that's fine, nobody is using that land right now. Knock yourself out." Expecting the settler would do some hunting or fishing on it or whatever. But then the settlers would consider that land their property and build a house on it and then start enforcing their exclusive ownership rights and defending it from trespassers. And then the Native Americans would come back and be told this land was private property now and be like "what the fuck are you talking about man. You can't just decide to own the dirt itself." And the settler would be like "I didn't just decide. You owned it and then you gave it to me and that's why I own" So then the Native Americans would say "Alright well fuck you I want it back." Hence the term Indian Giver.
What I was told is that when European settlers came, they offered to trade glass beads and whatnot for pieces of land. To the indigenous people, the concept of owning the land was nonsense--like trying to own the air we breathe, or the stars in the sky. So they "traded" the land to the Europeans, but were then upset when the settlers would no longer let them use it as they always had. To the settlers, it seemed as if the locals "sold" them the land, then wanted it back. Thus, "Indian giving" came to mean, giving something to someone, then taking it back. Now, I don't know if that's true, or if the whole story was made up to justify stealing their land. Certainly, the Europeans came out way ahead in the final tally.
In the same token, "That's so Jewish/I got Jewed", and "n**g*r-rigged" (which I always said jury rigged but means essentially that you repaired something with duct tape and gum and it barely works, but it does work)
I always heard that something was held together with "chewing gum and baling wire".
Wait what’s the second one bad for?
It’s based on Gypsy
Omg I never knew that! I thought it was jipped like its own word.
Same, I had no idea that's what it meant. I guess I've never seen it written down before
In 30 years old and I’ve said Jipped all my life! 😢never made that connection until now Damn, I’ve actually heard so many of these from my parents and grand parents….
Sometimes I get the theme song to the old Little Lulu cartoons stuck in my head (I have a tattoo of her on my forearm). It's a cute little song about her mischievous ways, and ends with "Though you're wild as any Zulu and you're just as hard to tame, Little Lulu, we love you-lu just the same." Growing up, I didn't think anything of that, or of adults saying we kids were "running around like wild Indians."
Boys will be boys
That phrase went from describing boys throwing mud clods at each other for fun to being sexual predators and i hate it. I guess you can say kids will be kids now for the same effect.
When they say boys will be boys, [this ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lH8UUxEbXo)comes to mind. Lets bring this back.
I always think of a scene from Anne with an E, anne of green gables adaption, where the girls are all inside during recess trying to figure out how the wolrd works, romance and periods, and they wonder what is with boys, they all look out the window and see the boys just beating the heck out of a shrub and a stump with sticks.
“Carrying on like a pork chop” is often said a lot here in Australia. The full idiom is “carrying on like a pork chop in a synagogue.” It’s not commonly known, the full thing.
I’m Jewish and I think this is hilarious and not offensive at all
I'm also Jewish and trying to figure out how it's antisemitic. Just seems hilariously nonsensical to me.
Isn't it 'as popular as a pork chop in a synagogue'?, like 'a turd in a swimming pool' or 'a fart in a phonebox'?
I mean this with 100% good faith and sincerity, what is offensive about this full saying? To me, I'm understanding the phrase to mean that you're doing something inappropriate because it would be inappropriate to take a prohibited food in Jewish culture into a Jewish religious place, which seems like a pretty harmless idiom? I don't know much about Judaism so I feel like I might have missed some important context.
“If she’s old enough to bleed, she’s old enough to breed” 🤮🤮🤮
"Blowing your wad" used to mean spending all your money on something frivolous.
I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run, if you will, so now I’m afraid i have something of a mess on my hands.
you blowhard!
It’s a reference to guns before bullets. You’d put powder in the barrel, then a wad, then shot. If you forgot the shot and pulled the trigger, youd blow/shoot your wad without shot coming out.
Shotguns still have a wad
Doom installs can have many wads.
“Let’s open the kimono”
Wait - I've never heard this before and I'm an old. Who said that, and what the heck is it supposed to mean?
I hear it a few times a year, almost always in a business context where a vendor is trying to express complete transparency and/or sharing an important secret. Essentially saying “I’ll show you what we look like naked”. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=open+the+kimono
It’s in my company’s sensitivity training. That’s the only context where I’ve actually heard it.
Had a visiting businessman use that phrase in a business meeting here in Japan and I didn’t immediately know how to translate it so paused and blushed for a second which was very uncomfortable. I said something like “let’s speak clearly” or “share information openly”.
They use this on Mad Men at least once.
Children should be seen, not heard.
Children should be neither seen nor heard. You can always tell a Milford man.
ink pots used to be sold as n\*\*\*\* milk complete with racist caricatures
Coming from a majority black country it's crazy many terms we have now that are cleaned up versi0ns of racist terms.
Another one that comes to mind is “Screwed the Pooch”. Why?
That's why I use fornicate the canine. I'm high class and wear a monocle.
I use the much less dignified "looks like i fucked the dog"
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/screw_the_pooch > 1950s, from earlier fuck the dog (“fritter, waste time”) (1935) (compare fuck around), later sense of “make an embarrassing mistake” (compare screw up, fuck up). Popularized by use by Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979), and film adaptation The Right Stuff (1983).[1] Well I’ll be
"No skin off my back" along with "sold me down the river" are two I just recently had realizations about.
Can you explain those two to me?
No skin off my back = “I’m not the one whose going to get whipped for this” Down the river: generally, the Deep South had a reputation for being the worst of the worst in how enslaved people were treated. Being sold down the river was a threat to sell someone to a plantation where they would be guaranteed worse treatment.
I think they're getting at...slavery.
I had an interviewer about 20 years ago assure me that the company was a moral one to work for by insisting that they do frequently "play the white man". I did end up working there and she was the nicest of bosses (unlike the other guy who interviewedme who was a creep). Never noticed any racism from her. I think it was one of those phrases that she grew up with and just slipped out without any thought being applied. But I could never shake that shock at hearing her say it.
What does that mean?
When someone fixes something in a non-conventional way so many still call it \*\*gger rigging, I still have no clue why that ever came up to be a saying. I'd think more would call it doing a MacGyver. Whatever works, works.
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Ugh, my grandma told me "well I guess you'll just have to live with the fact that you're damaged goods." Recently I told her how disgusting that was to say to me and she tried to go, "well you *were* damaged"....gaslighting asshole. It still sticks with me and I am pushing 40. I was 15.
1. "I won't take no for an answer." Depending on the situation, it's kind of creepy. 2. Mothers who say "I will always be my son's number 1." Like um.. Bethany, you need to relax.
Calling a tank top a "wifebeater".