I love family allusions! We have actually absorbed some into our family from family friends and had others absorb ours.
Dh has a cousin who is about ten years younger than he. When he graduated from high school, we sent him a check as a gift. His thank you note was written in typical, tiny, male chicken scratch. He started right at the top of the note and only wrote one sentence so there was lot of blank space. It read, “Dear Hoggirl and Hogboy, Thanks for the cash - I sure can use it. Sincerely, Cousin.” So now, anytime anyone exchanges cash in our family, we say this line.
One time I told my father-in-law that someone a bit older that I had encountered had asked if I was related to him (he played college football for our state flagship). His reply, delivered in complete seriousness, was, “Well, I am a local folk hero.” We’ve found good use for that one as well when someone is being too braggy about themselves - “I bet you are a local folk hero.”
A good law school friend of mine told a story about her grandmother when one of her grandkids told her something she thought was crazy and disagreed with. Her response was, “Are you drunk on dope?” ? We’ve absorbed that one into our family and use it when someone says something we find to be preposterous.
Other family friends insisted that when their children were young and played board games and lost they had to tell their opponent, “Good game, thanks for playing.” We started doing that as well, but in a very sarcastic tone (we are a pretty competiive bunch).
My H’s cousin used to date this guy who was kind of a scam artist. One day, he told us this convoluted story about going to a bank that ended with him shouting: “And, I says, says I, that I wants my monies back!” So now, whenever one of us owes another money, we say - “I wants my monies back!” The funniest part is that my youngest son, who wasn’t even born when H’s cousin broke up with this guy, has taught the phrase to HIS friends and they use it.
One of ours is “only five more handfuls” when it comes to eating a not-so-great-for-you-food. We were on a family vacation and all eating too much of something…potato chips or similar and one of us said “I have to stop eating these” and my mom said, in all seriousness “Oh me too, I’m only having five more handfuls.” Of course we instantly starting cracking up and now this is family code for “I know I should stop eating this, but I don’t care.”
Another is at my expense…once my husband and kids were all in a parking lot and the car beside us started to leave, slowly, but I didn’t realize this, I thought we were moving but knew we weren’t and I said something like “I think I’m having some vertigo” and well of course that was just the most hilarious thing ever. So now when someone is slightly confused over a simple mistake, they all love to say “Vertigo! Vertigo!”
A family member, also from New England, often used the phrase “Well bless your heart”. We thought that was sweet until we learned the many meanings of that phrase in the South.
Baby kid - “I am going upstairs” - when she was tired of watching TV or did not want to interact with us. So we now use the phrase to mean “I am done/ I am tired.”
DH taught our sons to invoke the right to counsel if they ever got into trouble. S2’s kindergarten teacher helpfully wrote down “I can’t talk about that. I want to speak to a lawyer” as S2’s response in the class’s “Sorry” book for Yom Kippur that was sent home to each family.
“Make it so” and “Tea, Earl Grey, hot” are on the list, as well as various lines from Gilbert & Sullivan and Tom Lehrer songs.
I know there are a million more, as word play and sarcasm run rampant in our house.
@CountingDown Speaking of Star Trek, my sister-in-law started this one: Whenever someone has a string or bit of fuzz on their shirt, you say “You have a Klingon.”
Oh yes, we drink “Earl Grey, hot” in this house too. My mother always told the dogs, “Guard the house” when she left them alone, we don’t have pets, but used to say it to the kids.
We were on the rooftop sculpture garden at SFMOMA and there was a young family whose preschooler was entranced by the exhibits. His mom asked what he thought, and his response was “This is awesome as cheese!”
“Awesome as cheese!” is now a superlative in our home.
“What are you gonna do, eat your way to college?” (from an old army recruiting commercial) said when someone’s being indecisive.
“I blame the parents”-source forgotten, but we say it facetiously when we’re lamenting something dumb one of our kids has done.
“Spoonbill” We went on a trip with relatives that included a visit to an animal park. One relative repeatedly said all she wanted out of the trip was to see a spoonbill (the bird). We now refer to the one thing someone really wants from something as their spoonbill. “What’s your spoonbill for Paris? My spoonbill’s the Luxembourg Gardens.”
“Bang cheese” My then two year old asked for “bang cheese”. Having no idea what that was I offered a number of cheeses, American, Swiss, cream cheese, string cheese, and so on, each of which was rejected. My increasingly frustrated kid finally demonstrated what he wanted by pantomiming holding a bottle and smacking it on the bottom. “Bang, bang, bang!” Ah, Parmesan cheese! 20-something years later we still call it bang cheese.
We sarcastically use the line ftom Freaky Friday, “Make good choices today!” when someone gets out of the car.
There is a line in a family genealogy book saying our family has “sturdy common sense”. We now refer to that when someone in our family does something sensible. Someone told me I have common sense at work last week, and I explained to them that I have no choice given our family saying. ?
A non-verbal one. An older relative was convinced that the fact that a certain type of whale had been found to the eastern side of the Baja Peninsula was evidence that there was a secret tunnel through the Baja. Never mind that whales are mammals who need to breathe and the Baja is 25 miles wide at it’s most narrow-a distance that would result in drowning whales. We joked that the whales just hold their breath, so when we’re together in public and someone says something especially illogical we just smile and nod and do a quick intake and hold of breath, something no one but us would notice.
Our toddler was amazed when he was served some yellow string beans once because, to that point, he had only seen green string beans (which he called “greenie beanies”). He loved them and always asked for “yellow greenie beanies” after that. Since then, yellow string beans have always been called “yellow greenie beanies” in our house.
English is not my dad’s first language, so idioms could be confusing. When he was dating my mom, he once told her not to look for a gift in the horse’s mouth. That has stuck.
My husband’s first language isn’t English either, so he used to get some idioms close but not exact. When we were in college and I complained of having a lot of work he said “You’re not in the only boat”, a combination of “We’re all in the same boat” and “You’'re not the only one.” We still use “You’re not in the only boat.”
I always told my DH “Be good, have fun” when he’d leave for his late night mens league hockey games. To which he’d respond, “Make up your mind!” When DS17 was in high school, he’d text me when he was going out with friends, and I responded with “Be good, have fun.” And of course, he always came back with “Make up your mind!”
