A few columns back, I used the phrase, “It’ll all come out in the wars,” as a way of saying many problems have a way of solving themselves.
I wrote “wars” instead of “wash,” because I was quoting my mother and that added “R” is the way people from Missouri talk.
In a it’s-a-small-world bolt from the blue, I received an email from Lisa Morrison, who authored a blog titled “inthewarsh.”
Her family is from Ohio, and her mother and uncles used to say, “It’ll all come out in the wars,” meaning, in her evocative description, “Those seven words draw a picture of the hard labor and daily drudgery that are sometimes necessary to make things clean, and they inspire us to trust that things will work out for the best.”
These wonderful localisms and colloquialisms are fast disappearing from our language.
And that’s a pity.
I still remember some of my mother’s local expressions and words from her youth in St. Louis.
Here are a few of them you might enjoy:
* “Not saying A, I, or nothing.” Use this when you don’t want to comment, yet leave the impression that you could say a lot if you wanted to. For instance, if someone asked Tom Cruise for secret information about Scientology, he might reply, “I’m not saying A, I, or nothing.”
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* “Whether school keeps or not.” This is a way of saying that someone is stubbornly persisting in a course of action. Say, “The president is standing by his tax cuts whether school keeps or not.”
* “You have to put your oar in.” This means to give an unwanted opinion. Such as, “We already had decided where to have dinner, then Paul had to put his oar in.”
* “Stay until the last dog is dead.” My favorite. This describes staying somewhere for a very long – most likely too long – time. For instance, “The party was over two hours ago, but Paul just had to stay until the last dog was dead.”
Over the years, I’ve used these phrases in my conversation, to the delight and amusement of friends, who in turn have used them to add some spice to their speech.
Feel free to help yourself.
Know of any localisms or colloquialisms from your own family?
I’d love to hear them.
Paul Sass one is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.