Ask Lemmy

It's a matter of propinquity.

First one is from my grandfather, who is really more of a father to me than my own father. Whenever he was expressing delighted astonishment, he would exclaim Caaaaaaaaaaaaaats!

My mother would always say "ass over tea kettle". Don't try to carry all those boxes down the stairs, you're going to fall ass over tea kettle. Or in a funny exaggeratoy way like "he went flying ass over tea kettle".

My father would append the suffixes -aroonie and -areeno. It could just literally apply to any random situation. For example, if he got a good price on apples, he got a deal-areeno. One time his foot slipped and the car blasted through the fence. The ol' smash-aroonie.

Instead of swearing my mother would with say Snivelswitch or Son of a seacooks dishclothe.

I don't have any good ones but apparently my partner's mom used to "jokingly" tell the kids "you're special with a capital R" (back when that word was in fashion)

never heard other families say "oy vey" growing up. As an adult I learned it's a Jewish saying, and I asked my mom if we are Jewish and she just said no, lol

Not quite a suitable answer, but I concocted the saying “stop negatizing”. My parents then used the term against me throughout my childhood when I would pout or mope around.

I quite like the saying.

My grandpa would say "I'm hungry enough to eat the ass out of a skunk..."

Pretty sure it was just for shock value