Skip to main content

Have you ever wondered ???

Have you ever wondered where certain phrases come from?

Like, "Cold hands warm heart"?
Often when shaking someone's hand, I hear how cold my hands are. And they are (so are my feet). I don't know why my hands are cold. But I usually responds with the 'cold hands warm heart' phrase. I want people to know that my cold hands should in no way reflect on my overall disposition. I might give you a cold stare if you say something wildly inappropriate, but that's a rarity. Those are the only things cold about me. I have a big heart and a warm personality.

Or "It's the least I can do"?
This is a favorite pet peeve of my friend Laurie. It's usually said after someone says thank you for a kind gesture. And the giver then says, 'it's the least I can do'. Really? You're basically responding with "I could have done a lot more but instead chose the option that required the least amount of effort/time/resources because that's how thoughtful I'm not."

Or this "No problem"?
You tell someone thank you, and they respond with 'no problem'. This makes John cringe, and he'll often remark - 'the correct response to thank you is you're welcome'. Might be a generational thing!

What are some of phrases that have you wondering? Add them here!

Comments

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Ten Year

When I was in junior high school, I staged a sit-in and learned about 'ten year'. This will come as a total surprise to most of you readers - I was not a perfectly well behaved child. I know, I know - you're shocked, amazed, in wonder how I could have turned out to be so well-behaved despite the oats sown in my youth.  And the sit-in is a perfect example of how I marched to the beat of my own drummer. Miss Brown was an English teacher - and not a very popular one. She would invoke the yardstick on wayward student's hands and scowl the moment we walked into the classroom. We weren't very kind to Miss Brown but then she wasn't very kind to us, either. Personally, the hardest part of having Miss Brown as an English teacher is that she nearly ruined my love of my favorite topic in school. It was the year we were to learn grammar (have I ever mentioned that as a writer I detest grammar?). I think some new way of teaching English was introduced and in all l...

Time Keeps on Ticking, Ticking Into the Future

Who does that song? The one with the lyrics - "Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking into the future"? It's the song that continues to play in mind today. I've attended the graduation open house of my son Matthew's dearest friend, Kyle, today. While there I saw the elementary school principal, a teacher or two and a boatload of friends. It made me realize that no matter how hard I try to maintain the status quo ~ life continues. Not only can I vividly recall my children as young children, I can recall many of their friends. It's  bittersweet this time passage thing because we, as parents and adults, can recall these graduating 'children' as children. At this open house, my daughter's first grade teacher recalled Delaney as a six year old lover of books and told tales out of school that brought back the memories of my daughter at that time in her life. Shortly after that conversation,  I watched her rehearsal for the concert/performance/f...

holding on for dear life

  Tuesday was cool, the morning especially. And while working at the Book Nook I saw people dressed for two seasons -summer and fall. Lots of plaids, flannel and boots or booties worn by customers that I assumed were anxious for fall. Not me. I'm holding on to summer for dear life. I wore a sleeveless dress, sandals and a cotton sweater. I mean here in Michigan we will be donning those fall duds and not showing skin again for at least eight months. And while I'm not good at a math, I know that eight months is most of the year. According to my calculator that's 66 percent of the year (66.666667 to be exact - my math 094 professor at MSU would be impressed that I knew that if I'd done it myself. But I'm smart enough to use a calculator to come up with that - like I used to tell her every class "we don't need to know how to do that, we can just use a calculator". Pretty sure I wasn't her favorite).  Boy did I digress with that walk down memory lane. A...