Simmer Down

You know that phrase “simmer down”? I say it sometimes when the kids are trying to break my eardrums with their loudness…

 

 

Crappy Boy says he is going to give one of his toys to Crappy Baby.

Crappy Baby is happy and excited and starts screaming:

Crappy Boy holds out the toy and then says:

Sizzle down! Close.

This is especially funny to hear because just last night I said to Crappy Papa:

Close. (That’s the way the cookie crumbles & that’s the way the ball bounces)

By the way, I do this all the time. It isn’t that I don’t know the idioms, it is that I think of more than one at the same time. I use both and jumble them together.

Like last month when our DVD player died:

(Bit the dust & kicked the bucket)ย 

I do this so often that I started writing them down. Of course I can’t find the journal that I wrote them in so that was a super good idea.

I’ll find it eventually.

Until then, you’ll have to cool your horses.

 

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248 Responses to Simmer Down

  1. Jennifer says:

    I am notorious for doing something similar to this!! I will constantly mess up couples’ first names. For example – we have a couple friend Brad and Trisha and when I refer to them, my brain likes to scamble their names into Trad and Brisha. So we actually call them Trad and Brisha as a joke, LOL! I think I talk so fast that my brain can’t keep up!

    • Sarah says:

      Oh I do that all the time too! We have friends named Chase and Katie and i call the Kase and Chatie. I have done it so much that I can’t stop now!

    • Stefanie says:

      Our friends turn out to be Dan and Pammy all the time…not far off from their correct Pam and Danny.

      • KipT says:

        I did this with friends Shona and Trish. I kept (yes, more than once) called them Stoner and Shish.
        Plus my partner is hilariously good at getting those sayings wrong. Once we got a bit disorientated driving around a new city, and she said ‘I’ve completely lost my marbles’ instead of ‘bearings’. And my all-time favourite was when we had just started seeing each other and were all lovey-dovey. I did something clever and she gazed at me sweetly and said ‘you’re just not a pretty face!’

    • Rachel says:

      How about our friends, Al and Phyllis. Or is it Phil and Alice?

    • Devan says:

      I have cousins, Shelley and Katie. I very often call them Kelly and Shady.

    • Bronwyn says:

      A friend has children, Archie and Darcy. I live in fear of mixing them up – Darchie and …. yeah.

    • Heather C says:

      We are Heather and Larry, so we get mixed up at Leather and Harry all the time. We fight over who’s who.

  2. emily says:

    A few years ago, a friend of mine at work was leaving to move to Austrailia for a year. On the phone with a client she said “yeah, I just need to take some time to get out and spread my legs”. She was thinking “spread my wings” and “stretch my legs” and combined them in the funniest (and most embarrassing) way.

  3. Hahahahaa!

    But you totally CAN bite buckets… so it only makes sense…

  4. Love it. Bite that cookie into that sizzling bucket. Ha.

  5. joanna says:

    I had a professor once say “It’s like shooting sitting ducks in a barrel” and no one in the class even flinched. Except me, who was shocked that he couldn’t get the saying right.

  6. Norah says:

    Well if it makes you feel better, I read “Close.” like “open and close”. So for the duration of your post, I was thinking you were using it like “Fin.” or “The End.” and was wondering how I was so unhip that I didn’t know people said that. Then I got it.

    Close.

  7. Kathleen says:

    I do this all the time!

  8. Brandy says:

    A former coworker of mine says ‘jerk-knee reaction’. The one time he was corrected it went right over his head.

  9. Courtney says:

    My husband and I do that on purpose, especially around his family. “When in Rome, make lemonade!”

  10. Sally says:

    This made me laugh! The one that I said many years ago was to ‘spring to suspicions’ instead of ‘jump to conclusions’. Still use it today – I think it sounds better!
    Sally

    • Heide says:

      “Spring to suspicions” is WAY better. LOL! Conclusions can go either way. Suspicions, particularly springing ones, arrive suddenly and give you the stink eye, in a sort of, “J’Accuse!” way. Which is just a hilarious image.

    • amber says:

      I like ‘spring to suspicions’ better!

    • Dawn says:

      LOL…Spring to Suspicions is more accurate most of the time! ๐Ÿ™‚

  11. Andrea says:

    English is my second language, so I do these things often. Have you ever seen the episode of Modern Family when Gloria learns all the idioms she is messing up? For me, up until very recently, I thought it was “nip it in the butt” ๐Ÿ˜‰

  12. tara says:

    Those are great! I hope you found your journal soon. I hate when I lose my good ideas. I always find them in the most random places. Or my husband does, and looks at me like I’m crazy because it doesn’t translate on paper. Whatever, he’s just not creative ๐Ÿ™‚

  13. KayDee says:

    I have a coworker that butchers idioms all the time…
    Nip it in the butt;
    Like shooting cats in a barrel;
    Make them think on their pants;
    If it doesn’t make me stronger it will kill me

    I love her for it.

    My young son once said “you’re driving my nuts!” and we have been using it ever since.

  14. Sonjia says:

    Too funny!! The other day my husband says to me, “Let’s dump this popsicle stick”, which I’m sure he meant “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” LOL!

    • Melissa says:

      Haha I say let’s blow this popsicle stand all the time and no one knows what it means. As in where did that saying come from? And I realized that I don’t know either, it was just something my Dad always said.

  15. I can identify with this. ๐Ÿ™‚

    I say ‘blow your socks off’ on a regular basis. Rock your socks off + blow your mind. Heh.

  16. Lauren says:

    That is too funny! My mom does that with movie titles. For the longest time she could not remember “Dances with Wolves” and would call it “Dances with Eagles.” Come to think of it, I don’t where the Eagles part comes from. I guess she just inserts the wrong word.

    • Martha says:

      My mom is amazing at screwing up movie titles:
      Up in the Air (The Air up there)
      A Night Out on the Town (Night on Earth)
      In a League all by Themselves (A League of Their Own)
      and the best one ever…
      It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (Sometimes a Great Notion)

  17. Beth says:

    Summers Donna! Sorry, can’t hear simmer down without thinking about that SNL skit! ๐Ÿ˜‰ (Am i showing my age?)

  18. Have you ever heard of Brian Regan? The comedian? He does a whole bit on stuff like that – it’s HILARIOUS. He is hilarious. Like…the first time my husband heard it he was driving and drinking milk. Let’s just say…that wasn’t smart…he was swerving and spewing milk out of his nose.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S52-5DPRnck

    *bonus – he’s totally curse-free and clean so it’s ok to listen in front of the kids. I prefer they learn profanity from me anyway. ๐Ÿ˜€

  19. jess says:

    Ha. My mom does the same. The most infamous is when she referrred to Barnes & Noble Book store as ‘Bartles & James’. We still laugh about that one!

  20. Jessica says:

    HAHA!! I do this, too! I say “Pull my arm” and “Twist my leg!”. It reminds me of Clark on Christmas Vacation. He says, “Burn dust! Eat my rubber!” I laugh everytime ๐Ÿ™‚

  21. Jean Russell says:

    Loving the post and all the comments..the very things that cause my kids to roll their eyes.

  22. Jen says:

    When I was in college I messed up and said “if it was any closer it would have bit out and jumped me”. Needless to say my roommates got a good giggle.

  23. Lynn says:

    My brother-in-law had the best garble ever. When their kids were small he used to chase them saying “I’m going to pinch your butt!” or tickle them after putting out one finger and saying “Ok, who wants this?” One day his brain twisted it to his finger out and saying “Who wants this in their butt?”

    Thankfully no one took him up on it.

  24. Julie says:

    I have a friend who would always say, “c’mon folks, it’s not rocket surgery.”

    • Jen says:

      We will be adopting this one for sure. Right along with “Time’s fun when you’re having flies.” It’s surprising how often people don’t catch it. We hear what we expect to hear.

    • warmfuzzyfeeling says:

      We say that, and also “it’s not rocket salad”.

  25. Pami says:

    I mix words up so often that people claim I speak my own language – fortunately my husband is fluent in it, and so was my ex. I once asked my ex to “take the refrigerator out of the microwave,” and he went and took the lasagna out of the oven just like I asked him to. He was so adept at translating me that he had no idea why I was laughing so hard when he came into the room with our dinner plates.

    Unfortunately, my daughter seems to have picked it up, and she is SO adamant that she is right when we try to correct her. She asked me for “tomato chips” the other day. Daddy figured it out before I did (she wanted “potato” chips)!

    • Angie says:

      ROFLMBO! I was reading down these comments and all of them were making me smile or giggle, but yours had me laughing so hard tears rolling down my face that I couldn’t read the words anymore until I had gotten control of myself ๐Ÿ˜€

    • Marina A. says:

      I also do this all the time, and yes I also been told I have my own language! Ha! Now add Spanish to it. Yes! I mix words in two languages into one word! Of course I can’t think of any right now!

  26. Shea says:

    Let’s go see the stingfish and jellyrays! (at the zoo) EVERY damn time! I always get those mixed up.

  27. Sue says:

    As a law firm associate, a partner pointed at a document and told me to monitor a specific part of the negotiation. I responded, “Sure, I’ll keep an eyeball on it.” He then took his lifted and cupped his hand and mimicked taking his eyeball out of its socket and placing it on the document. (Keep an eye on it + eye on the ball)

  28. Leslie says:

    A friend’s old former co-worker: “c’mon, people. It’s time to sh*t or cut bricks!”

  29. Kate says:

    We still make fun of my mom for once telling us “Don’t throw stones at glass houses.” It’s definitely good manners not to throw stones at someone’s glass house but not quite the life lesson she was after.

  30. rebecca says:

    i used to think that the saying ‘shut your pie-hole’ was ‘shut your pipe-hole’ IDK! i said that for years until last year when someone at work corrected me.

  31. Lindsay says:

    I do that all the time! I think my most used is “c’mon, it’s not rocket surgery!” my grandfather, an aerospace engineer that worked on the Saturn V rockets used in the Apollo missions, thinks it’s hilarious.

    • Amie Nelson says:

      I was listening to a this american life interview with an aerospace engineer and they asked him when they are at work what they say instead of it’s not rocket science. He responded we say it’s not rocket science and then chuckle because it is.

  32. julie says:

    My ex once said “It’s driving the shit out of me”, like “it’s driving me crazy” and “annoying the shit out of me”. I still giggle at the thought of it and we used it all the time after.

  33. joanne says:

    my father is the king of these in our family…and it’s spreading to the rest of us. Then there’s other classics:

    he complained about the HIV (HOV) lane
    and a woman who showed her “public” hair in a wet, white swimsuit
    “they ate egg last night!” (they ate crow+had egg on their face). Um, Dad? They SERVED deviled eggs last night….We ALL ate egg!
    “There’s something in turkey that makes you sleepy. An aphrodisiac.”
    Trying to assert authority over me–“I’m the figurehead of this family!” (that’s true–Mom’s the real boss.) etcetc

  34. Kati says:

    LOL! Love this! My brother-n-law is from another country and English is his 2nd language. Sometimes I think it is his 3rd and 4th! LOL! When I was younger and he was over the house eating supper with us and tried to ask my VERY Southern Father for a tooth pick and he called it a ‘pick tooth’. We still use that one! He also thought my sister used ‘pressed on eyebrows’ when she asked my mom to get her another set of press on nails and an eyebrow pencil at the store.

  35. Abigail says:

    I am glad it is not just me that does this!
    I love idioms and other turns of phrase, but I always seem to get then a bit mixed up. I think, like you said, I think of two (or more) at once and say a bit of each.
    The funny thing I’ve heard from my friends though is that the resulting phrase is normally better.

    One of my favourites I’ve come up with is “tits in the water” for when something has gone wrong. It’s a mix of “tits up” (it’s a UK phrase, it’s not too rude – swap for “belly up” if you don’t like the word)and “dead in the water”. You’re welcome to keep it, and I’ll help myself to “bit the bucket” ๐Ÿ˜‰

  36. Sharon says:

    I actually do this on purpose a lot because I think it spices up otherwise hackneyed phrases. Makes people pause and rewind. It’s better when you intro with, “Well, you know what they say, …” You can also try just going with the first half of the idiom, such as “You know what they say, a bird in hand…” And the idiom need not apply to the situation. But you will sound really smart.

  37. TiffBlakey says:

    It’s like beating a horse with a dead fish. That’s what my friend’s mom says. No clue where the dead fish came from. But still funny.

  38. Jennie says:

    My mom is from Germany, and her husband is from Armenia. So there is a ton of misused phrases in her house. My husband’s favorite is “Talking about the devil”. I grew up with it, so I usually know what she means, but sometimes it has me slip up.

  39. leah says:

    While driving some country back roads with my husband I read the signs posted on the fences. They said “No Tresspassing” and “Violators will be prosecuted”. Except when I read them aloud to H I said, “Tresspassers will be violated. Hmm…that’s a bit harsh!” Lol. My brain does this to me all the freaking time!

  40. Kath says:

    My 3rd grade son is learning idioms at school. So I get to listen to him try to prove how smart he is – “you’re driving the wall!” “Piece of pie.” He doesn’t appreciate me laughing at him.

  41. Jodi says:

    I do this all the time too! Just the other day I told my husband, “Don’t count your ducks before they’re in a row.” He just laughed at me.

  42. Maria says:

    My stomach hurts from laughing at all the comments!!

  43. Barbara P says:

    My husband likes to say “don’t count your chickens before they cross the road”. That one actually makes more sense than the original!

  44. 12tequilas says:

    My husband calls things “as useless as tits on a bull.” For the longest time I thought he was saying “as useless as tits in a bowl.” Tits in a bowl are pretty useless…right?

  45. Jessica says:

    Toooooooo funny. Mommy brain! It’ll get you. I can’t remember any good ones right now… Probably because my 18 month old woke up at 4am demanding bananas. He seriously never stops eating. I should buy stock in snack food.
    Anyway, a big problem the matriachal line in our family has is calling our children by every name but their own. I only have one child, but I will go through six names before I get to his. “Brand-Eri-Seanuhh-JESUS CHRIST.” That is, my man, my step-father, my brother, and, well, Jesus Christ. Not that I think my son is the messiah or anything. I just give up. My mother and my grandmother both have/had this problem. My grandmother just called everyone, “Francis.” She had three kids. It was basically impossible for her to remember anyone’s name. I don’t blame her. You’d think it’d be easier. These are the only people on this Earth that we’ve actually named ourselves. But no.

    I should just call him “me me me” because that’s what he calls himself.

    • Willow M says:

      We have this problem in our family, too. I have often called the kids by the dogs name…
      My husbands family is HUGE and I love laughing at his gandma when she starts rattling off every grandkids name before she gets the right one, she often tells me to ‘can it’!

    • My mom adds in the dogs names as well.
      At one point she called us all Ethel… even my brother, but since we all moved out she tries to call us our names again… it did not work for her on Thanksgiving when she called me my sisters name at least 4 times, my brother the dogs name at least once. I do not know what she will do next year when we add grand-babies into the mix!

      • Ancy says:

        My mom still does this and my grandmother did it too. My mom will call me by my sister’s name and vice versa. She has two brothers in India and two brothers in the U.S. She calls her two brothers in India by the name of the 2 brothers here and vice versa. My sister and I don’t mind as much as my uncles do. They get sooo jealous that their big sister loves her “other brothers” more than she loves the ones she’s with at the time. It’s hilarious.

    • Lee says:

      Yes, I end up just yelling “you! whatever the heck your name is!” And I’ve called a child by the cat’s name, and vice versa, which is probably even worse. God forbid the kids have friends over, then I get their names mixed up too. Weirdly, I’m a teacher and I never get my students’ names confused (except that one time I had eight students whose names all started with the letter K. It was like having Roger Clemens’s kids in class times 3).

    • Devan says:

      I was talking to my friend Terry once (female), I said “Hey Sherry, er uh, Larry….” After that hysterical laughing ensued and I never completed my thought. Now we call her Larry all the time. (we were a bunch of cackling women at a scrapbook party).

    • warmfuzzyfeeling says:

      Yep, my mum and Gran both do this. I only have one son so far and am so far managing to remember his name in spite of sleep deprivation, but there’s time yet.
      I did once forget the name of the guy I was with – we were walking down the street in town and I went one way while he went another. I stood on the corner looking at him walking away from me obliviously all the way up the street and drawing a complete blank on his name to shout after him.

  46. 12tequilas says:

    Oh! I forgot! In Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket says, “you buttered your bread, now sleep in it.”

  47. My kids are always saying “That really cracks me out.” instead of “cracks me up”. That’s all I got. Love the post and the comments! ๐Ÿ˜€

  48. Rebecca says:

    I am loving these comments! The best that I’ve heard about (did not directly witness) was from my husband’s coworker, who said, “We need to stop farting around in circles.” (farting around + running around in circles) The image just kills me.

  49. Katie says:

    When I was younger (like high school, not really young), I messed up the seven dwarfs–I named Sleepy, Happy, Gropey, Dumpy, Sneezy, Bashful and Doc. Didn’t live that one down for a long time!

  50. Kerry Lyons says:

    LOVE this and can totally relate. One of my classics was “You can’t pull sweater over my head!” A unique twist on “you can’t pull the wool over my eyes.” oops! Thanks for yet another good laugh!

  51. Willow M says:

    My best one of these is ‘turtle dogging’ (turtle heading and prairie dogging) when I had to take a duce really bad… My husband still laughs supper hard when I bust that one out.

  52. Anaka says:

    That’s awesome. My husband once said (thinking it was the actual phrase): “Let’s burn that bridge when we cross it”. Mmm… Probably not the best idea. We still use that one.

  53. Christy says:

    My aunt once said, “That guy sure got his clock rung!” (clock cleaned/bell rung). We still say that one at family gatherings…

    • Christy says:

      …or when my husband ordered a “fuzzy nipple” (fuzzy navel/buttery nipple) at the bar…the bartender gave him this look like, “man, there’s nothing good about a fuzzy nipple…”

  54. Anna in Ohio says:

    Years ago, when my now-husband was meeting the parents for the first time, it was at a 4th of July cookout. We had hamburgers and hot dogs and the whole family was gathered around the table making their meals. Someone asked me if I wanted any mustard, and in my brain I was thinking I’d like a “tiny” and/or “little” bit, but my mouth said, “Yeah, just a titty bit.” Mor. Ti. Fied.

  55. Melanie says:

    I mix up my idioms so much that I finally just embraced it and now it’s “my thing.” I’m the crazy lady that says things like, “I’ll just tag along as the fifth wheel”

  56. paperfox says:

    My boss once said, “It’s a dog eat dog’s breakfast” (it’s a dog eat dog world and it’s a dog’s breakfast)….and my coworker got an email from a client saying, “This process has been complicated from the gecko” (complicated from the gecko).

  57. Bethany says:

    I did that just the other day while I was on the phone with my mom! Of course now I can’t remember what I said exactly….I guess I should have written it down ๐Ÿ˜‰

  58. paperfox says:

    Whoops! “Complicated from the gecko” is from “complicated from the get-go” ๐Ÿ˜‰

    • Devan says:

      Guess I should have kept reading before I commented on the other one….that was a good slip though – I have tears rolling down my face!

  59. S says:

    I only started doing this when I became a mother. As I’ll never stop being a mother now, I guess I won’t stop butchering idioms either.

    They’re so delicious!

  60. martinet says:

    My mother had an unfortunate incident involving fainting and throwing up at a party, and not being able to get her words out straight (she was NOT drunk, FYI). She didn’t tell me about this until several days later, and when she did she told me that the doctor thought she might have had a mini-stroke, or a TMI.

    Told her no, Ma–a mini-stroke is a TIA. TMI is “too much information,” and given that you’re telling me this three days later, that’s really NOT the problem.

    • Devan says:

      I am sorry that this happened to your mother, but OMG, the first line made me choke I laughed so hard….more tears streaming down face!! LOL!!

  61. Lynnae says:

    my hubby still makes fun of me for the time i accidentally said “slow the phone!” (slow your roll + hold the phone)

  62. Nora says:

    I combine words all the time..sometimes not even from the same language!
    I tried saying Egg. and Huegg came out (oo-egg) since my brain combined the spanish version Huevo with Egg..
    Then I once said Jaruto Chop..which is what happened when I tried yelling Karate chop, but i somehow threw in Judo (martial arts) in the mix..Jaruto Chop..I blame it on the residual pregnancy brain ha!

  63. Julie says:

    Like when my daughter used to tell me, “Momma, I’m clean as a daisy”.

  64. Kathleen says:

    Ha I do that a lot too. I had a coworker who used to say “let’s go see a man about a horse,” which meant go to the bathroom but I turned it into “let’s go see the horses.”

    Once someone said something about not buying the cow if the milk is free which I turned into buy the cow and kill the chickens.

    My hubby did it too though over the summer. While watching the summer Olympics e kept talking about the volleyball players “smashing” not spiking the ball. He played tennis so that’s the term that came to his mind quicker but I still thought it was pretty funny!

  65. Melanie G says:

    a lot of times i switch the first parts of 2 words– like saying acon & beggs (bacon & eggs). most of the time i don’t realize i’m doing it. it makes me feel super smart lol

  66. Beth says:

    Back in our hometown at the church where my husband and I met, there was an old gentleman who looovvved to talk with anyone who would listen. He would often wind up the conversation by saying “Well, I’d love to sit here all day and shoot the fat, but I know you need to get going!” Husband and I still say “shoot the fat” instead of “chew the fat” in honor of Bert. ๐Ÿ™‚

  67. Debi R says:

    Thank God I’m not alone! I never say the right word! My kids have been known to be called by our dog’s names also.

  68. Fenny says:

    One of my former bosses used to constantly do this. The department kept a list of his sayings. When anyone left, they got a copy to take away with them.

    My all time favourite was “driving too close to the car behind”.

  69. penny says:

    English is my second language as well. I used to say, “You really hit the nail on the bucket!” Until a friend let me know that it made no sense and I was mixing hit the nail on the head and kick the bucket. Perhaps I was subconsciously thinking of transcendence?

  70. Hope says:

    Bless this blog. I am in my office giggling and crying and trying to be quiet about it! I have to add one. My mother is not very ‘hip’ on slang… That being said, when she is telling me that someone yelled at her about something, she will say “I just got ate out by….” (whoever it is that CHEWED her out). Everybody in my family laughs about it, but nobody dares to tell her just exactly what she is saying….

  71. Brianne Birman says:

    I was playing catch phrase with my husbands family one Christmas Eve years ago (before we were married) they were describing a phrase and you have to guess it. I though they were describing a snow blower then realized they were describing the phrase ‘a snow job’ but my mouth moved quicker then my brain and a yelled “blow job” I was mortified and 9 years later they still tease me about it ๐Ÿ™‚

  72. O my gosh! My husband does that all the time. His favorite? “I’m just pulling your buttons!”

  73. KG in MN says:

    I’m soooo guilty of this too! A few of my “best” include:

    *There’s only one way to skin a cat (I mean, who skins cats anyways?!)

    *You can’t pick your friends but you can pick your relatives (really, now…)

    *This too shall change

    And my personal favorite:
    *Rode wet and put away dry (er… rode hard and put away wet? Not gunna lie, I still get this one confused when I try telling the story!)

    Glad to know I’m not alone! ๐Ÿ™‚

  74. I once read a newspaper article that said the new hotel owner was “full of vim and vinegar.” A friend once referred to a man as the “bedpost of the church” (instead of pillar).

  75. Courtney says:

    I have a bad habit of saying “Your Problem!” when someone tells me thank-you. I start to say “you’re welcome” and then decide to change it to “no problem”. Sigh….

  76. Jessica says:

    Ha, I like it. This would would work very well if someone was thanking you sarcastically.

  77. Cheryl says:

    My husband and I like to play the idiom game when we’re around other people to see if they actually notice the wrong words. It’s awesome to mess with others.

  78. Marcie says:

    I just found your blog and love the pics and stories. My husband is famous for doing this. The one I remember is: “not the brightest tool in the shed” My daughter when she was about 4-5 (she’s 18 now) said “spilled the cat out of the bag”.

  79. Michelle says:

    From my grandmother: “Half of one, 6 dozen of the other”. I still use that one all the time! From my husband: “Why would you want to visit Haiti in July? It’s hot there. That’s why they have that saying ‘it’s hot as Haiti is’.” ??!! I guess he thought that’s what they were saying when they said “Hot as Hades”! Well, anyway…don’t cry over milk spilled under bridges. Make Lemonade!

  80. My hubby is a foreigner and speaks excellent English nonetheless, however, some idioms took awhile to sink in and some never did. My favorite from our college era was “potato couch” instead of couch potato. Then there’s his “I don’t mean to row my own boat, but…” Toot my own horn/whatever floats your boat…

  81. Laura Scott says:

    My husband picked up take away and said ‘love you’ to the Chinese girl. (Lovely – thank you) ooopsy! Should have seen her face!

  82. My son says, “slimmer down.” I don’t even use that phrase but he heard it from Despicable Me. (Invisible Me at our house).

  83. Amanda Reed says:

    Mommyisms we call ’em. I do it all the time. lol

  84. Brandon says:

    Like Biff from Back to the future! “Make like a tree and get outta here”!

  85. Nicole says:

    Wasn’t it the wise Clark Griswold who once said:

    “Burn some dust here. Eat my rubber.”

    Yes, I believe it was.

  86. MichelleN says:

    My husband totally does this constantly! Only his aren’t really combos of two idioms, they just don’t make sense. The other day he said “Straight as a whistle.” I think my favorite tho was “It’s like beating a dead cat” (sounds so much meaner when talking about a cat for some reason ๐Ÿ™‚

  87. Laura says:

    Yeah, I constantly try and change phrases ever so slightly when around “important” people or meetings or anywhere else where I can get my kicks. The rule is to get other people not to correct you but make them question whether they heard you right, so my joy just lies in watching them wince.
    So here’s a few of my best ones

    As alike as two peas in a pub
    Nip it in the butt
    A bygone conclusion
    No point beating around some bushes
    She’s taken to it like a cat to water.

    This works pretty good with books too, a game between Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens came up with….

    Good Expectations
    The Big Gatsby
    For Whom The Bell Rings
    Mr Zhivago
    Portrait of a Woman
    Two Days in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

    This kind of game never seems to bore me…..

  88. JoAnne Hepp says:

    Let the cat out of the can is my most famous. (Cat out of the bag, opened a can of worms)

  89. zj says:

    When I was in my last year of high school I was interviewed on television about a protest I had organised where we stormed the Education Department because the teachers planned to roster students out of classes because the class sizes were too big. Although the segment was pre-recorded they wouldn’t let me re-film the ending when I accidentally said “rectify the solution” instead of rectify the situation/come up with a solution. I still cringe about it 24 years later!

  90. Michelle says:

    From my grandmother: “Well, it’s half of one, 6 dozen of the other”. I still use that one all the time! From my husband: “Why would you want to visit Haiti in July? It’s hot there. That’s why they have that saying ‘it’s hot as Haiti is’.” ??!! I guess he thought that’s what they were saying when they said “Hot as Hades”! Well, anyway…don’t cry over milk spilled under bridges. Make Lemonade!

  91. Nancy M says:

    We still laugh about this one in our house; an idiom not misused, but misunderstood… my husband and his co-workers were laughing and teasing each other during a meeting, saying “Shut your pie-hole.” After the meeting one of the company owners pulled them aside and reprimanded them for using inappropriate sexual language at work. My hubby turned to his friend and said, “I wonder what he thinks that means?” His friend commented, “I’m a little worried about how he eats his pie.” ๐Ÿ™‚

  92. Sherrynjv says:

    I also do it all the time. Ie. Up the creek without a ladder (up shit creek-without a paddle).

  93. Dianne says:

    Love it! So we have a store called Unfinished Furniture and I always call is Unfurnished Finature. LOL!!

  94. B says:

    Haha I know of a few that mix words up. One I can think of now is when my sister wanted “Curry buffalos” (curry puffs and buffalo wings) lol.

  95. Sherrynjv says:

    Things to see, people to do (Things to do, people to see)

  96. Heather B says:

    My father-in-law is a pastor, and, in his sermon on Sunday (and I have no idea what he was referring to) he said, “He wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed.” My husband and I almost busted a gut on that one, and whatever lesson was there to be had, we totally missed it.

  97. Josie says:

    When my daughter was three she used to ask me if I wanted a “piece of quiet”. I always did.

  98. Cristal says:

    I often say “six dozen of one…uh (I had to go do the math) 72! of another!” Rather than six of one, half-dozen of another! Duh permanent mommy brain ๐Ÿ™‚

  99. April says:

    My FIL was trying to be sound smart as he degraded his brother saying: “Well, you know, he’s not the sharpest pencil in the deck.” Guess he really showed everyone who had the big brain with that one. My husband and I still use it!

  100. Tara says:

    I have a good friend whose Dad works with a gentleman who speaks English as a second language. He mixes idioms up all the time. My personal favorite is, “You’ve got to be $h*tting my pants!”

  101. Amanda says:

    The classics in my family all come from my mom:

    “I came out smelling like a bandit on that one!” (Mixing up ‘made out like a bandit’ and ‘came out smelling like a rose’ while excitedly telling us about a deal she had found)

    “Everbody’s uncle is here” (instead of ‘everybody AND his uncle is here’)

  102. karecoyne says:

    “Pass the booger shool”my father said at breakfast when he wanted the sugar bowl.

  103. Katie says:

    Hahaha – I finally couldn’t be nice about it any more and had to correct my husband who, when trying to convey that something is not up to standard, says “It just doesn’t cut the cheese…”. Lol. “I think you mean ‘mustard’, baby – unless you’re saying the standards of your work crew don’t fart/stink?” hehehe

  104. Sheili says:

    That is SUPER AWESOME! My mom and I do the same thing. My husband always laughs at the combination of sayings I put together. I always shrugged it off as a quirk of ours..now I know there are more of us out there (of course there would be!)
    All of the comments have me laughing so hard. I think I’m going to go wake him up and make him read the post and comments! lol!

  105. Rachel says:

    My grandma always swore it was “You lose, you snooze!” and refused to believe us when we tried to correct her.

  106. Miranda Martin says:

    That’s called a Spoonerism! He was a Church of England priest with that habit – only worse. He did it at weddings and funerals in awful ways. Look him up. ๐Ÿ™‚ I do it some, too, but I am a teacher do it’s just an occupational hazard!

  107. I also do this all the time but I really mess them up. Like the smoking gun becomes the “flaming pistol.” Such fun!!!

  108. Patti says:

    My mother-in-law is famous for these. “She’s such a tooty good shoes!” “I was completely side-blinded.” My personal favorite (I am not nearly clever enough to make this up) was when she was telling us about the string duet on television: “Isaac Pearlstien and Yo Mama.”

  109. Janine says:

    We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it.

  110. Devan says:

    These comments are fantastic!! I laughed so hard!!

  111. Chrissy says:

    I do this all the time to! So much I didn’t even notice you had said it wrong! “why don’t you make like a tree and get out of her!?”-Biff

    Anyone awesome will immediately recognize the quote above. ๐Ÿ™‚

  112. Anja says:

    I do that all the time too. My best friend has a laugh about me messing up sentences because I mix the english saying with the german saying and get something completely random out of it

  113. Tania says:

    From my husband: “That’s a hard nut to swallow!” Hey, it totally works, but it still had us spewing our drinks out of our noses.

  114. Kyles says:

    My boss once said in a meeting “If I do that I’ll be circumcised”. He meant crucified.

  115. Simone says:

    So many of these are just too funny!

    I always say “It’s not brain science”. I swear the first time you say it wrong and everyone laughs that the new saying becomes etched in your brain, even though you know it’s incorrect!

    Thanks for all the laughs ๐Ÿ™‚

  116. Liz says:

    Love this post! English is my husband’s third language, so we get these all the time. His most recent was one night when I wanted to go to sleep early and he grinned at me and said, “You’re such a poopy party!” instead of party pooper. And then looked baffled at my shock-to-belly-laughter reaction. Hilarious.

  117. Brittany D says:

    These are too funny! I wanted to comment on several but I’d be commenting all day! My favorite was a friend of a friend. She was famous for mixing up idioms & when telling a story about her boss reprimanding her she said, “He raped me over the coals.” (raked over the coals) Gets me every time!

  118. Alayne says:

    My brother in law started saying “Take luck” when he was little. (Take care, and Good luck) Sometimes we still say it. And grin a little.

  119. Lauren says:

    My husband says “Simmer down!” all the time, so our son started saying it really early on. Kind of bad when he starts telling us to “simmer down” every time we tell him to do something he doesn’t like!

    • Lisa says:

      My mom always says “Does the pope poop in the woods?” which combines “Does a bear poop in the woods” and “Is the pope Catholic”. Cracks me up every time!

  120. Rebecca Hoop says:

    Mine is joining two naughty phrases by taking the cuss word out: jack hole. My husband’s is chilly pheese steak.

  121. Jen says:

    I live in Florida and can’t stop saying “It’s hotter than Bejesus out here!”. Don’t know what a bejesus is but I think you are supposed to scare it out of someone.
    Also, “Now you’re thinking with wood!”

    So many great, funny comments…I have a laughing hangover now!

  122. Elisa says:

    You are like my soul mate!! I’ve been doing this for years and my husband always teases me about it. It’s so nice to know I’m not alone.

  123. Gretchen says:

    One of my favorite personal mix-ups is “my twanny pose are histed”. (Panty hose are twisted.)

  124. Heidi says:

    My mom is the master of malapropism (my big word for the day, lol). Her most famous is “they keep me in the dark and feed me mushrooms”…. everyone in my family says that now ๐Ÿ™‚

  125. Molly says:

    My mother’s Swedish grandmother did this! I never met her, but 60 years later, people in my family are still talking about how she “Slept like a stump.”

  126. Brittany says:

    OK I had to add a couple more. Some told me today “you’re crackin’ smack!” (Smokin’ crack and talkin’ smack)

    And a friend of mine whose brother survived an IED attack told EVERYONE she knows (including her church) that he survived an IUD attack.

  127. Courtney says:

    I’m not the sharpest cookie in the box, so I can relate…

  128. lizzie says:

    Some fun ones from a friend long ago – that I’ll never forget:
    *Don’t count your eggs before they break.
    *She’s a friend for all weather.
    *He’s just sitting in his own stews.
    *That’s just falling on false ears.

  129. Jana says:

    Thank you all so much! It took me forever to read all these because I kept having to take my glasses off to wipe the tears from my eyes!
    My mom’s best was when she would tell us that we were “smarter than the average cookie” (smart little cookie + smarter than the average bear). It stuck and we still use it! – there have been many a conversation as to what the “average” cookie is and which ones we are ‘smarter than’! ๐Ÿ™‚

  130. warmfuzzyfeeling says:

    My dear colleague was brilliant for mixing her idioms and not realising. One of my favourites was “not a cat in hell’s chance to stand on”… that cat must’ve been having a particularly bad day! We worked together in a pharmacy where we sold a lot of alternative medicines and I remember overhearing her talking to a customer enthusiastically about “homotherapy”. I wish I could remember more.

    My mum told off me and my brothers when we were young and we weren’t taking it seriously. She swung around with a face like thunder and shouted “I’M NOT FUNNY!”… (she meant “it’s not funny” or “I’m not laughing”… but we obviously disagreed and laughed even harder)

  131. Kay says:

    Yesterday when I was reading this I laughed as much at the comments at the post. Ha! Ha! Ho! I would never come out with anything so mixed up… Karma hit this morning as I attempted in my sleep deprived state to amuse my baby by the pool while my daughter was in for her swimming lesson. I filled a container with water, put it in front of his head and declared loudly (proud that I was organised enough to pre-pack a container for water play), “There you go. Knock yourself off.” Knock yourself out + knock your socks off is a bad combination. Sounds like I wanted my baby to suicide. Bad. Very bad.
    Thanks for the awesome posts. They make me laugh out loud. And people who make tired grumpy parents laugh out loud surely make the world a better place.

  132. annie says:

    My husband and I always quote Brad Pitt (when he was on Larry King), “mode of operandus.” LOL!

  133. Darcie says:

    I had a college prof with a thick accent who told us an easy math problem was a “piece of joke.” He didn’t understand why the room of 300 or so students were all laughing.

  134. Drew M says:

    I do this sort of thing on purpose. When something is particularly awesome I refer to it as the “best thing since sliced-bread sex in a beer can!” I also frequently use “Well it’s not exactly rocket surgery”.

  135. Trisha says:

    I used to do this all the time with my son. I’d combine “sit still” and “stay put” to come up with “sit put.” Every time. It never failed. lol

  136. Martha says:

    “Keep your peels out” – keep a look out and keep your eyes peeled. That’s one my sister and I have been using for more than a decade now.

  137. Debbie says:

    Thank you to my friend Sheri for linking one of your witticisms today on Facebook. I’m reading all the archived stuff and I cannot stop laughing out loud. I am doing this at work btw. ๐Ÿ˜‰ Thanks for the giggles!