After my most recent caviling about the overuse of clichés, I heard a friend say, as she was talking about making a decision, "I was standing on the corner of Bitter and Sweet, and...." When she finished her sentence, I said, "Hey, I really like that!" She said, "But it's an old cliché!" I answered, "How can it be a cliché if I have never heard it?" She said, "My mother used to say it and there's a book and a movie called The Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter and Sweet." I told her I hadn't heard of either one. I have ordered the movie from Netflix. (See video from You Tube). It is about the disgraceful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Just my kind of thing, don't you know?
I've written before about my family's pouncing on clichés and changing them, thus our family motto, "Where there's a will, there's a relative." (CLICK HERE to see my BLOG article THE CLICHE POLICE) My New Year's resolution was to limit any cliché usage!
I realize I do like some clichés and I usually preface the usage by saying, "As Mother used to say....." I said recently to my brother, "I gave it a lick and a promise," and we both laughed. Mother used to add a little "oomph" to some of hers: to "He didn't have a pot to piss in," she added "or a window to throw it out of!"; to "Calling the kettle black." Mother would say, "That's like the pot calling the kettle black ass!"
2 comments:
"from id to izzard"--ever hear that one? ML
I am sitting here laughing and crying simultaneously. All your mother's "oomph"'s were also my mother's.
One year, my mother had two requests for her birthday. She wanted a "high quality window" (she was turning 83 and feeling the chill in her bones) installed in her bedroom or "one of those new toilets that had buttons for how hard you needed it to flush" installed in her ensuite.
We did both, and the family joke for years was what we got Mom for her 83rd...a pot to piss in AND a window to through it out of!
Thanks for bringing back those memories.
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