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Odd Sayings

In a similar vein, I think 'munter' is a wonderfully evocative word for a lady of few obvious attractions, and a fairly recent one at that.

What the equivalent for a similarly unattractive man would be I'll leave for some of the ladies to tell.

'Munter' is an equal opportunities insult, used by and about both sexes indiscriminately.
 
A few beans short of a burrito. It means not the sharpest tool in the shed, obviously. :D
 
He's got a few roo's loose in the top paddock - He has some strange ideas.
 
'He/She is so ugly, they would make an onion cry.'

The 'so ugly' saying I've most commonly encountered in the US South (particularly southern mountain areas) is surprisingly consistently stated as:

'He / she is so ugly his / her mama had to tie a pork chop around his / her neck so the dog would play with him / her.'
 
A few beans short of a burrito. It means not the sharpest tool in the shed, obviously. :D

I don't specifically recall hearing any of the 'X (amount / number) of Y short of a Z' formatted sayings prior to the 1970's, but there have been innumerable variations on this template over the decades since. I wonder if anyone's ever compiled a list of variations on this theme.
 
A few beans short of a burrito. It means not the sharpest tool in the shed, obviously. :D

In addition to all the variants of the 'short of' template, there have been many similarly analogical sayings connoting general dimwittedness or inattention, such as:

'His elevator doesn't go all the way to the top'
'His antenna doesn't pick up all the signals.'
 
I prefer the Les Dawson version, as he had the face to go with it:

A face like a bulldog chewing a wasp!

I thought of that too!

Dawson had a keen ear for what was funny and what was not. He revoking some words were innately more humorous than others, e.g. 'thicket' was funnier than 'hedge'. They don't mean the same thing but they convey a feeling.

Anyway, today I discussed someone's peccadilloes with a Manchester colleague, who nodded sagely and replied 'Whatever soaks yer cornflakes, eh!'
 
Scarlett "Gogglebox" Moffatt, currently appearing on I'm A Celebrity uttered the following sentence on last night's show:

"As my dad always says 'what doesn't stick in your throat won't stick in your arse' "

Under what circumstances her father "always" says this boggles the mind. I assume its a reference to things being edible, but it sounds like so much more.
 
My siblings and I were brought up always hearing a sequence of descriptive insults we had no idea were limited to our own family....Anyone greedy was "Guts McCourt", anyone flamboyant or effeminate was "Girly Onion" and anyone to be generally shouted at (ie us kids) was "Pig Maneely" (spelling uncertain).

It was only in..or near..adulthood that it dawned on me that these weren't phrases anywhere but were in fact the nicknames of particular neighbourhood individuals in Belfast where my parents lived in the first years of marriage. "Pig" Maneely was a police officer.
 
A face like a slapped arse.
A face like a wet kipper.
Etc.
 
After my daughter was born we took her over to my Grandma's. The baby started to cry. Grandma says 'Hurry and get that ni-ni in her mouth before she breaks.'
It took a minute before I figured out she meant give my daughter her pacifer.
 
One I remember is " He's a few sandwiches short of a picnic."
 
Another variation "He's not the fastest jet in the squadron."
 
More rattles and bangs than a millionaires baby - spoken of a car in a parlous state.
 
A Rolls canardly - an underpowered car that rolls down inclines, but struggles up the corresponding hill.
 
You useless bloody article - mothers favourite expression.
 
Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

A taco short of a combination plate.

Elevator doesn't go to the top floor.

As sharp as a bowling ball.

IQ is counted in negative numbers.
 
More useless than a dog that won't hunt. I feel this is rather specific to rural areas but I heard it several times growing up and as a reason I couldn't have a pet I wanted.
 
The 'so ugly' saying I've most commonly encountered in the US South (particularly southern mountain areas) is surprisingly consistently stated as:

'He / she is so ugly his / her mama had to tie a pork chop around his / her neck so the dog would play with him / her.'
I worked with a lad who thought the funniest saying ever was;

'Your mamas so ugly, not even Cilit would Bang her!'
 
More useless than a dog that won't hunt. I feel this is rather specific to rural areas but I heard it several times growing up and as a reason I couldn't have a pet I wanted.

In my experience the 'dog / hunt' combo was most commonly encountered as one of a group of phrases used to express a firm opinion that something abstract wasn't feasible or something specific did not act or operate as expected or as advertised. For example:

- That dog don't hunt
- That mule don't plow

A local (east Tennessee; 1970's) non-native city manager invariably invoked one of these phrases in each of his TV news interviews. There were at least 1 or 2 additional variants he used, but I can't recall what they were. I don't recall ever hearing these phrases (with the given connotation) prior to his popularizing them.
 
More useless than a dog that won't hunt. I feel this is rather specific to rural areas but I heard it several times growing up and as a reason I couldn't have a pet I wanted.

The most common southern Appalachian sayings I heard relating to uselessness all referred to superfluous mammary equipment on male animals:

As useless as ...

- teats on a bull
- tits on a boar

In a related vein ... For circa 40 years I've heard folks in multiple regions connote uselessness or pointlessness for an action underway or a proposed action under consideration as 'Re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.'
 
During my teen / high school years (late 1960's) there was a widely encountered conversational gambit in which a seemingly random phrase was uttered in response to a question or statement that either made no sense or represented something to which the respondent didn't wish to accord any importance. This gambit was also employed when inserting oneself into a conversation without regard to context or topic.

The part I found interesting was that there was a canonical set or list of the random phrases used for this purpose, and a lot of my fellow teens recognized what was or wasn't included on this list. This recognition made it possible for these otherwise random phrases to eventually be employed in isolation to connote 'whatever ...' or 'let's change the subject' or 'we seem to be talking nonsense.' Certain of my teen-era friends continued to use these canonical phrases for decades.

Examples of these canonical phrases:

- No thanks - I've got a ride.
- Ooooohh ... She moved. ('Moved' as in 're-located'; not as in 'stirred')
- Just ridin' around - get in.

No one could ever tell me where or how this originated locally, and I've never run across analogous teen-speak tactics anywhere else.
 
Well similar to that, a friend and I will use 'I want my sweater back' when we want to change the subject from a discussion going nowhere or we're just being silly. I think I started it after seeing some comedy routine about not having the argument the other person wants and starting your own.
 
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