The pièce de résistance of odd grandmother phrases.
Tomorrow on KCUR’s Walt Bodine Show, The Word Wizards from UMKC will be on to dissect odd phrases and colloquialisms that grandparents say that make little sense when compared to modern conversational idioms.
I had a few gems from my grandmother that I emailed in for tomorrow’s show, but I had to share my favorite one here today.
I searched for each of the phrases that I submitted on Google and found most of them to have at least mild common usage at some point in the 20th century, but I’m quite certain this one is a bona fide, 100%, “Helen-ism.”
When my grandmother would belch, she would often say, “Excuse me, I meant to puke.” Not sure where this phrase would ever come from, and I’m not sure why she doesn’t say it anymore. I can’t even recall when she stopped saying it. I think she finally realized how gross that phrase was.