Re: USAGE: Cool idioms (was Re: Bibliography)

khaT@v@ Nik Taylor:

>Well, from a native English speaker, here's one that I think is rare.
>I've only heard it from my mother, so I don't know if it's a Kansan
>expression (she grew up there), or a family idiom, or what, but anyhoo,
>here goes "On the second Tuesday of next week"
Here's a few from my mother (who's of Texas-Louisiana extraction):

"Gone to Dallas after a load o' goats."
  (Means that the speaker doesn't know where someone is.)

"Turkey squat behind the wash pot, left a greasy spot."
  (Means that somebody made a mess.)

One from my ex, who was born in Iran but grew up in various places in
the Northeast US:

"Back when I was a beer."
  (Means before the speaker was born; compare to "when I was a gleam in
my mother's eye".)

And one coined by none other than Groucho Marx when he did a show in a
certain East Texas town, before he and his brothers went into comedy:

"Nacogdoches is full of roaches!"
  (Means obviously, this place is roach-infested or otherwise messy.)

(I grew up in Nacogdoches, but I was born in nearby Lufkin.)

Danny
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