Tag Archives: expression

It’s colder than a witch’s tit

Nationality: American
Age: 65
Occupation: Consultant
Residence: Claremont, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My source was raised on a farm in Nebraska, and during the winter, snowstorms can be frequent and it can get very cold.  He remembered his father coming inside from running an errand.  After removing his outermost coat and hanging up his hat, my source’s father grinned and used this folk metaphor to describe the temperature.  My source found the comment amusing.  He laughed and then left to find his dad a blanket to warm up with.

Many times, my source has described many hardships of being raised on a farm, mainly the chores.  At one point, it was his responsibility to milk, feed, brush, and take care of the cows.  A cow’s utter is not protected by hair, and under winter conditions can become very cold.  It is important that the utter does not get too cold because the cow’s tits will actually become chapped, and the cow will become sick and stop producing milk.  To prevent this, my source would be sent out and would have to rub a protective balm on each cow’s tits.  My source distinctly remembers how cold they felt.  Now, my source made sure to explain this to me, because if he knew a cow’s tits were freezing, it made him wonder how much colder a witch’s tit would be.  And for it to be colder than a witch’s tit, then it must be seriously cold outside.

My source thinks that the metaphor was developed through similar reasoning.  Also, he mentioned that this metaphor is mostly shared by people who live in colder climates, because he has rarely heard it since he moved to California over thirty years ago.  In my opinion, I believe the metaphor was likely developed by a drunk who stepped out into the cold and decided to exclaim the temperature was colder than two completely unrelated words.  Their friends must have found this hilarious and the metaphor would have caught on and spread by word of mouth.

She’s got her shoes on backwards. – Korean Expression

Nationality: Korean
Age: 51
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Cerritos, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

“She’s got her shoes on backwards.”

 

My informant first heard this saying in her hometown, the urban city of Pusan, Korea.  It is duty in Korea for males to devote two years of their lives to army training.  The training is not optional but mandatory.  As soon as they were called, the boys would have to leave everything they were doing to move into a military base for two years.  “She’s got her shoes on backwards” is a common saying when a young man returns from his army training.  The saying means that his girlfriend before the army training would have married someone else by the time he returns.  She would did not faithfully wait for him.  Gwi heard this saying when she was in high school and her two older brothers were leaving for army training, and their mother warned them that by the time they return they should not expect their girlfriends to be patiently waiting because they would most likely “have their shoes on backwards.”

Apparently it happened quite frequently in Korea that a girl would not wait for her man to return from training, especially if she were faced with proposals from other men.  I can see how the saying originated.  When you have your shoes on backwards, your shoes point to a different direction.  Instead of walking to her man, she would walk the other direction to a different man.  If she has her shoes on backwards, she would walk away from her man.