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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Thursday, October 9, 2008 8:46 PM CDT
COLUMN: Discombobulated? Get outside and blow the stink off

By PENNY WEAVER, Night News Editor
pweaver@jg-tc.com

I was talking to a friend via phone one day when I heard her exclaim something unintelligible, and I knew something was wrong.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Oh, the cat has gotten into the window blinds!” she said, obviously exasperated. “He’s got them all whopper-jawed.”

I started to laugh. It was just a reflex.

“‘Whopper-jawed??!!’” I exclaimed between guffaws. “How on earth do you spell that?!”

She started to laugh too. Neither one of us could figure out how to spell that, so I’m improvising here. But she said “whopper-jawed” is just a word or phrase she’s heard since she was a kid.

That was a new one on me. I guess it kind of means “askew” or out of order. I think I’m gonna try to randomly throw “whopper-jawed” into everyday conversations to see what kind of looks I get from people.

Isn’t it amazing the funny sayings or words we all have that we take for granted, yet they are often phrases that others have never uttered?

Talking to one of my best friends on a more recent day, she bemoaned that she was feeling sluggish and kind of stuck in a rut, hanging out in her apartment all day. She’s from the South — a native of the Atlanta, Ga., area, which is rare, as most Atlantans are “transplants” from the rest of the country — so we sometimes trade oddball phrases from our families.

“Why don’t you get out and blow the stink off?” I suggested.

She started to laugh. “‘Blow the stink off’?!” she exclaimed.

She’d never heard that one. Well, my mom said that a lot when we were kids. We girls would be squirrely, probably driving her crazy inside with our antics, and she’d tell us to go outside and “blow the stink off.”

Well. I guess when I think about it, that is kind of a funny thing to say. I started to laugh too.

Being a fan of oddball words and phrases and such — yes, I’m a nerd that way — one of my favorite words is “discombobulated.” I think that’s a great way to describe being disoriented. It’s catchy, it has rhythm, and it’s much more complicated.

Really, what sounds neater: “I’m quite confused today”; or, “I am just discombobulated.” I think your friends would be much more concerned to find out how you lost your combob; they wouldn’t even worry about you being a bit confused.

I’ve found that the simplest — to me — words can create comic moments. At the office where I worked in Houston, I had a doctor’s appointment one day, so to let the staff know where I’d be, I told them something about having a checkup following my lobotomy.

Our secretary immediately replied, “Your bangs hide the stitches well.”

One of our ad reps, later that afternoon, when I was back, asked if everything was OK. She was concerned about the procedure I was going to have ... “A lo—, um, a lob—, what did you call it?” she asked.

Gosh. I thought “lobotomy” was a rather common word. Silly me.

Another fun thing about living in Houston was the sayings they used: “I’m fixin’ to ...” do this or that. That was my favorite. I knew I’d lived in the South too long when, instead of properly pronouncing words and saying, “I am going to fix some dinner,” what I said sounded more like, “Ah’m going to fix some dinner.” Yikes.

My grandma Weaver used to say the coolest things akin to Southern talk. Folks in Southern Illinois often sound a lot like people raised in the South, such as Texas or Georgia, and I loved to hear Grandma say “old-fashioned” things.

She’d call us “you-uns.” I think that’s somewhere between “you guys” and “y’all.” Packing stuff up to move this week, I found a card that she’d written me years ago and I just love what she wrote and the way she wrote it.

I think she, and lots of people in her generation, had just an eighth-grade education, and they surely did well in life considering that.

Grandma asked how I was doing, and said she was fine. Then she talked about her cat, Zip, and she wrote (to the best of my memory): “Zip and I are fine except when he goes in and flushes the toilet. Then we are on the outs.”

And she once wrote to me to ask how my Pug, Henry, who was a pup at the time, was doing. “How is Henry?” Grandma asked. “Fisty as ever, I’ll bet,” meaning “feisty.”

How boring it is when all of a person’s writing or speaking is spic and span, and “by the book” — no errors, but also no character, no flair, no musical quality to it. I love hearing the way people talk and the sayings they have, because it adds to their rich personal story, the life they’ve lived, and helps fill in the dimensions to the unique human being they are.

I also like old songs for the language that we don’t use anymore. When my Latina friend asked me what on earth a “salty dog” was — after hearing my bluegrass album and “Salty Dog Blues” — I had to ask my dad, since I kind of knew what it meant, but I couldn’t explain it.

Because I know you’re on the edge of your seat, for those who don’t know: A “salty dog” in that case is related to an “old salt,” a “sea dog,” or a seasoned (no pun intended) sailor; a tough guy.

I’m always on the lookout for new oddball phrases and sayings. I know, I’m easily amused — but it does make life more interesting, don’t you think?

C’mon — have a little fun with it.

When you get a bit discombobulated, and you’re “on the outs” with your cat, or your life is completely whopper-jawed, get a leash, take your salty dog for a walk and get outside and blow the stink off...

... or something like that.

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Rockin Rotty wrote on Oct 9, 2008 9:00 AM:

" Cool Beans! "

Rockin Rotty wrote on Oct 9, 2008 9:00 AM:

" Beans & Applebutter! "

grif wrote on Oct 9, 2008 2:26 PM:

" Yes I too love all the "old fashioned" sayings people use and I tend to use some myself. I love to say Hornswaggled. Once I was reading the readers digest and sure enough it was one of the words on the definitions page and I about fell over...To hornswaggle something is to trick someone out of....for example "I am going to try to hornswaggle that shirt from you later"...or something like that. Of course it is usually used better when I actually use it in a sentence :) "

The Question wrote on Oct 10, 2008 8:49 AM:

" This is good advice. There are things the financial crooks can't touch. The air is still clear, the birds still sing, the sunsets are still beautiful and the world still turns calmly on its axis. Sol omnibus lucet - The sun shines upon us all. "

Texas T wrote on Oct 10, 2008 10:59 AM:

" Don't forget along with "fixin to" is jeet yet? or in other words "Did you eat yet?" I will see if I can find my copy of the Texas Monthly that has a big list of all of the southern slang words and send it to you. If you don't have a subscription to that magazine you should get one. It is only $1.00/month. I used to have it sent to my Dad when he was alive. PS: I also love using the word discombobulated. "

Techno-less wrote on Oct 10, 2008 3:34 PM:

" Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for my ability to laugh on a harrowing day.

And, just to add to the collection, I was always tickled by the way my Great Aunt used to refer to someone's husband. She would call him "Jane's" man. For example... "Jane's man came by and carried off that old plow," or... "Verdie's man rode over to town to get fertilizer today.

In my life I have rode over, been carried there, and gone a-tipsy. I was once invited over to someone's house for sea food. When I sat at the table I noticed chicken, roast beef, and a variety of other foods in smaller quantities, but no sea food. When I asked about this, my hostess replied "what you see is what you get." It turned out she was using up the refrigerator leftovers. "

Jenny Reader wrote on Oct 11, 2008 6:34 PM:

" Thanks for lifting my spirits today. I can think of a few oddities of words and phrases, but probably couldn't spell many of them! "

Rockin Rotty wrote on Oct 12, 2008 4:06 PM:

" From Mrs. Rotty:

A favorite line of Grandma was....

Your toes are coming out to eat grass.

(Time to replace your shoes.)
LOL! "

Mama says wrote on Oct 12, 2008 8:20 PM:

" Dad made a breakfast of raw oatmeal added milk and called it LOM BAY GO THE COP ROSITY. Kids and grands laughed over that one.

He once told mom she too big for her britches when gained weight. When he got out of the hospital, he was nicer. hehehe. "

VTucker wrote on Oct 13, 2008 4:42 PM:

" My grandmother used to refer to someone's husband as her "man." I looked it up and found out that expression dates back hundreds of years, as does so-and-so is "sparkin'" or courting.

Here, I take it, when you go shopping you put your food in the cart before you check out. Back home, you put it in the buggy. You might then be liable to commence paying for it, if you're an old-timer. Once home, it might be his'n or your'n. I don't know, I reckon I might have to study on it for awhile and get back to you dreckley (directly).

Some of these expressions go back to the 1300-1400s when they were considered perfectly good English. "

Techno-less wrote on Oct 14, 2008 8:31 AM:

" This turned out to be great fun!!

I thought of another. One of my sisters, late into a pregnancy, got the urge to bake cookies. She baked all day. Hundreds of cookies.

My great-aunt noticed and commented, "Get the crib ready, she's a nesting!" The next day my sister went into labor. "

grapemama wrote on Oct 15, 2008 7:49 PM:

" I loved this article and the comments are a "hoot" too! It made me remember my own favorite word-"twitterpated." It means in love-I think it's from Bambi? One of my friends and I like to use "fancy" words whenever we get the chance. We call 'em fifty-cent words. :) "