Grandpa-isms

queenbone

My Grandpa used a lot of grandpa words like davenport, drainboard, and pocket book. He also had an expression whenever one of us fell down, "Down went the meat house!" It was cute so I started using it with my children. But my g-pa had a stroke when I was in college which left him unable to speak so by the time I had children I couldn't ask him about it. 'Meat house' made no sense to me so I thought maybe I had misheard him, maybe it was 'meeting house', like some sort of Southern Revival thing?  So I've been saying meeting house when my children fall down. It occurred to me to look up the origin yesterday and found nothing. Then DH checked for meat house. 

Apparently it is 'Down goes your meat house!" And apparently it was used as a threat of some kind? DH found some Civil War reference about shooting someone and down goes his meat house. So we guess meat house is a slang for one's body? I have no idea where my grandpa picked up this phrase, but it is definitely a grandpa-ism. But he only used it in the context of kindness.

Does your family have any good grandpa or grandma-isms? Do you still use them?

CarrieB.

You should email the radio program - a Way About Words. They are always investigating weird sayings like that and could get you more history.

My grandma always says "slacks" which I think is funny. But not as funny as meat house.

Mrs.AmyDylan

My grandpa was a hoot! He was a dentist, so he was big on dental humor. My favorite was, "if you don't want to floss, it's up to you. But expect your teeth will be like the stars...they will come out at night."

Another random favorite was upon arrival in town he would claim his arms were tired since he had just FLOWN in. 

He was a big jokester and we found many random items in his possession when he passed...a million dollar bill, a coin with T&A on it saying "heads I win, tails you lose", a whole collection of playboys, and some more offensive jokes people must have clipped out for him over the years. 

imoverit

Im not sure if this is one but my gpa would say when he was a boy he would get up so early he would have to wake the rooster.

My other gpa just had funny songs he would sing to us. Oh how I loved my gpas. Wish they were still here.

Jenny935

When we were sitting at red lights, mine would "blow out" the red light and then it would turn green. We thought he was magic and didn't realize from the back seat that he could see the light turning yellow going the other way.