You may ask what a euphemism is. I'll save you the time, having already verified its meaning on Merriam-Webster.com: "the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant". In this case, the offensive expression may be that someone is poor.
You may also wonder about the meaning of "idiom". That is, "an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either grammatically (such as no, it wasn't me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ride herd on for 'supervise')".
Having explained the above, I'll move on to the list, with associated information about where the expression came from and how (and by whom) it was used. I'll ask that you, too, send me any that you've heard, and provide a context for each, and I'll add them to the list. Please do try to keep it mostly clean, though some of the most memorable of them will no doubt have an off-color component (as witnessed by another in my list below).
"The snow was ass-deep to a tall giraffe."
I suppose this needs no explanation. It's something my dad used to say.
"He couldn't hit a bull in the backside with a barrel of beans."
Another of my dad's expressions. Used for bad aim, of course, no matter what the context. Why a barrel of beans? Dunno.
"Coffee and beer and beans and cheese."
A good breakfast, according to my dad.
"They didn't have two nickels to rub together."
This is an expression my mother-in-law used in talking about two friends of the family. She spoke about how they did something that required a little money, but she wasn't sure how, because "they didn't have two nickels to rub together.
"Yeah, and if your aunt had balls she'd be your uncle."
Joe Visek, the plant manager of a place I worked at in the 70's used this saying when you were trying to explain that, while something didn't work our well, if only this or that would have been true the thing would have worked.
"Holy mother cat!"
Another Joe Visek line, used when something went wrong, or surprised him.
"Holy livin' shit!"
Joe Visek, Ditto.
"Are you going to be a Bohunk all your life?"
This line was used by my dad when I did something stupid.
"Next time, use a bigger hammer."
This line was used by my dad when I tried something and it not only didn't work, but it wrecked what I was trying to do.
How did my dad - Lawrence John Dopita - get his nickname, "Pete"?
It seems that when dad started at the local paper - the Plainville Times - back when he was 13, in 1934, the publisher of the paper decided that Lawrence was too long a name, so said, "we're going to call you Pete", and it stuck. I can't quite remember the publisher's name - Harlan something-or-other, I think. It'll probably come to me some day and I'll update this item.
But, how, you might ask, do you get from "Lawrence" to "Pete". when "Larry" is the natural nickname to use. Well, as most everyone in the world does, the publisher probably pronounced our last name "Doe-peet-uh". We, of course, pronounce it "Dopp-it-uh". Good guess?
Volleyball Gets the Good Guy
Another story. My good friend of over 45 years, Randy Hauslein, was in my gym class senior year in high school. My teacher was a great guy named Ron Ashley. We had a student teacher helping out for part of that year. His name I cannot remember.
Anyway, we spent a lot of time playing volleyball. And when a shot went awry, there went our student teacher, dutifully jogging over to get the ball, sometimes clear across the field house. Well, some of the guys decided it would be fun if we "accidentally" hit the ball all over, just to see the student teacher run around a lot. Randy, however, was not part of that group. He was a "good guy".
Until one day.
We're playing volleyball, goofing around, and Mr. Ashley is getting a little hot at us. Randy picked this day to join the group. We get the ball, Randy is going to serve, and we see this gleam in his eye. I'm watching him from the front line, looking back and mouthing, "No! Don't do it. Don't do it."
Randy looks left, looks right, steps back and punts the ball across the field house. With Mr. Ashley standing right behind him. Right. Behind. Him. Coach Ashley yells, "Hauslein!" The blood drains from Randy's face, and he turns around. "Hauslein, I expect this kind of stuff from everyone else, but not from you. Go sit down!" Randy didn't get in trouble, except for the embarrassment, but I thought he was going to crap his pants when he realized Mr. Ashley had been behind him the whole time!
And, naturally, we never let Randy forget this.
