Old sayings, which make no sense?

[Turnip]

Who can do boozing, could also go working.

Most heard saying during junior high and apprenticeship for pals and me...

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

Perhaps they made sense, or, perhaps not. Things we were told as children.

Eat your vegetables, there are children starving in (name the country).
If you don’t quit making that face, it’ll freeze like that.
Don’t go in the water for 20 minutes after eating.
Look at me when I’m talking to you.
Don’t pick that, it’ll get infected.
Do you think money grows on trees?
Stop crying before I give you something to cry about!
Sit up straight, or you’ll get a hunchback.
Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
Don’t eat that, you’ll ruin your appetite.
Take your hat off in the house.
Who do you think I am, your maid?
Your father will hear about this when he gets home.
Don't sit so close to the TV, it'll ruin your eyes.

I remember all those over here in England too. I wonder what modern kids would make of them?

 

[LostInTyme]

StevieBoy1: I think the instructions were universal, given out with each marriage license, back in the 20th century.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I know a lot of young parents. You'd be surprised how many of these are still in use today.

"Don't play in the sewer, you'll get hydrophobia" was a common one in my neighborhood when I was small, but there are no longer any children living in that neighborhood, and they finally closed over the sewer, so I guess that one, at least, is finally irrelevant.

 

[Trenchfriend]

The classic A & O. Or "the root of the matter."

I had no idea until today, that it just means the Alpha and Omega.

 

[ChiTownScion]

My mom would tell me that eating too many sweets would cause diabetes. Marrying a nurse practitioner, whose family has more than its fair share of diabetics, taught me how ridiculous that was.

 

[LostInTyme]

"If you eat that, you'll get worms." (the Mom talking to the Dad in Christmas Story about tasting the Christmas turkey before it was completely done cooking)

 

[belfastboy]

Perhaps they made sense, or, perhaps not. Things we were told as children.

Eat your vegetables, there are children starving in (name the country).
If you don’t quit making that face, it’ll freeze like that.
Don’t go in the water for 20 minutes after eating.
Look at me when I’m talking to you.
Don’t pick that, it’ll get infected.
Do you think money grows on trees?
Stop crying before I give you something to cry about!
Sit up straight, or you’ll get a hunchback.
Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
Don’t eat that, you’ll ruin your appetite.
Take your hat off in the house.
Who do you think I am, your maid?
Your father will hear about this when he gets home.
Don't sit so close to the TV, it'll ruin your eyes.

I heard each one of these very regularly, except for 'wait til your dad gets home"....Dad died so that was never an option for mom....she was 5' nothing and I a big kid so the wooden spoon did not work so she accelerated the arms race moving up to a broom. Once I brought a box to the table and when mother asked what it was for I replied is was to put my veggies for the kids in China. I was still young enough to experience the wooden spoon not the broom of latter years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My mother's weapon of choice was a Sherwin-Williams wooden paint stirrer, on which she had written in ball-point pen, "Patty's Punishment Paddle." She kept it in the drawer next to her kitchen chair, and when you heard that drawer skreeking open, that was your cue to scram. Until the day she broke it on my brother, and started using a soup ladle. That one she broke on me -- the bowl spun off and flew across the room, which I thought was pretty funny at the time.

Ma came by it naturally. The bathroom door at my grandparents' house had a big crack in it. That was the result of my grandfather throwing a can of sardines at my mother when she was about twelve years old because she'd called him the "F" word. She had picked it up at school and knew she wasn't supposed to say it and so she did. One of those cute family stories we always laughed over in later years around the Thanksgiving table.

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

My mother's weapon of choice was a Sherwin-Williams wooden paint stirrer, on which she had written in ball-point pen, "Patty's Punishment Paddle." She kept it in the drawer next to her kitchen chair, and when you heard that drawer skreeking open, that was your cue to scram. Until the day she broke it on my brother, and started using a soup ladle. That one she broke on me -- the bowl spun off and flew across the room, which I thought was pretty funny at the time.

Ma came by it naturally. The bathroom door at my grandparents' house had a big crack in it. That was the result of my grandfather throwing a can of sardines at my mother when she was about twelve years old because she'd called him the "F" word. She had picked it up at school and knew she wasn't supposed to say it and so she did. One of those cute family stories we always laughed over in later years around the Thanksgiving table.

Imagine if any of that was to happen these days.??

 

[LizzieMaine]

She can't even imagine it herself. "What was wrong with me?" she says with a slow shake of her head.

 

[Turnip]

To make sense makes no sense when transferred literally to German.

 

[Hercule]

More of a definition, really.

Something I fail to understand is, as a definition for "altogether" how does one get to "the state of having no clothes on"?