Ask Lemmy

26701 readers

3202 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics.

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

candyman337@lemmy.world

TheSaneWriter@lemm.ee

TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

Asudox@lemmy.world

can@lemmy.ca

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

AsudoxDev@programming.dev

120

What family sayings did you think was universal? (infosec.pub)

submitted 4 months ago by dotslashme@infosec.pub to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

57 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/14650446

As I was growing up, my family had a couple of sayings I took for granted were universal, at least within my language. As I became an adult I have learned that these are not universal at all:

the ketchup effect. It is an expression meaning that when things arrive, they all arrive at the same time. Think of an old school glass ketchup bottle. When you hit the bottom of it, first there is nothing, then there is nothing and then the entire content is on your food.

faster than Jesus slid down the mount of olives. Basically a saying that implies that the mount of olives is slippery due to olive oil and Jesus slipped.

What you lack in memory, your legs suffer. An expression meaning that when you are forgetful, you usually need to run back and thus your legs suffer.

Please share your own weird family sayings.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Plenty people in my family refer to cat kneading, in Portuguese, as "dancinha do leite" (milk dance). And I always took it as if it was as universal as "amassar pãozinho" (to knead bread). Well, it isn't; I discovered this in my adulthood. Apparently it's from Italian.

There's also bunch of references to someone making things worse as "batata verde" (green potato); like "xô, vá ser batata verde noutro canto" (shoo, go be a green potato elsewhere) or "[pessoa] é uma batata verde" ([person] is a green potato). I get the reasoning, but no idea where my family got this from.

[–] Twitches@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

I'm going to start using green potatoe, thank you.

[–] Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Cats make biscuits!

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If that was the case my cats are always overworking the dough. Specially when one of them sits on my lap to watch a video, she spends at least half a hour with "prrr prr [knead knead] [headbutt] prrr prr". (She already got that my computer screen shows stuff like birds, mice and strings, but only if I'm nearby.)