As I was growing up, my family had a couple of sayings I took for granted were universal, at least within my language. As I became an adult I have learned that these are not universal at all:
- the ketchup effect. It is an expression meaning that when things arrive, they all arrive at the same time. Think of an old school glass ketchup bottle. When you hit the bottom of it, first there is nothing, then there is nothing and then the entire content is on your food.
- faster than Jesus slid down the mount of olives. Basically a saying that implies that the mount of olives is slippery due to olive oil and Jesus slipped.
- What you lack in memory, your legs suffer. An expression meaning that when you are forgetful, you usually need to run back and thus your legs suffer.
Please share your own weird family sayings.
The last one’s very similar to a german saying: “Was man nicht im Kopf hat, muss man in den Beinen haben.”
That literally translates to “What you don’t have in your head, you have to have in your legs.”
So that’s 3 people in this thread that brought this up. What does it mean? Is it intelligence versus athletics or something else?
Means work smarter, not harder.
I think this one means, either you use your intelligence or use your physical strength to do things. Guess it applies to work and tasks in general.
If you leave stuff in the other room, you walk more to go get it.
If you don’t think to bring something with you, you have to go back and get it (for example)
“Work smarter, not harder”
Yeah my family (mostly my grandma) used that one too but in Dutch. Wat je kop vergeet moeten de benen ontgelden.