Country Views - The use of idioms

By Tim King

The merchandise is selling like hot cakes! I know, we’re really going gang busters, we better high tail it out of here. Oh fiddle sticks, there’s nothing to worry about. Yes, we’ve been lucky so far but you better knock on wood. I’ve got my fingers crossed!

Does anybody that you know talk like that or use some of those idioms? I grew up with all of them but it occurred to me the other day that I might be a little odd. The inspiration came from a chipmunk, a little creature that I find is often inspirational. I startled the little fellow while it was snacking on some moldy nuts. Surprised, it headed toward the woods with its tail pointed sky wards. In other words, the chipmunk high tailed it. If you’ve ever surprised a white tail deer you may have seen it high tail it as well.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines high tailing it as, “to leave a place as quickly as possible.” The chipmunk and white tail actually lived that definition.

Okay, but what does Oh, Fiddle Sticks mean? My Grandma used to say it. Its meaning is a little complicated. When Grandma would say it she meant something like, “Pshaw, I don’t believe that nonsense!” She might also use it as a mild expletive replacer. For example she’d say “fiddle sticks” instead of “darn it” if she dropped the spoon she was stirring the soup with.

My son says he uses fiddle sticks, which I don’t believe has any relation to the singular fiddle stick, in the same manner as his great grandmother, although with him it may have been promoted to a mild expletive. Where do these young people learn these words? He never met my Grandma and we certainly don’t speak that way in this family!

Speaking of my son, he asked us what gang busters meant the other day. “Going like gangbusters” is pretty much synonymous to “selling like hot cakes” but, of course gang busters are entirely different from hot cakes. One can picture a hungry crowd gobbling down hot cakes, aka pan cakes, faster than, say the members of the local Loyal Order of the Moose can fry them up. But what do gang busters and hot cakes have to do with each other.

As you elders may know, gang busters are G Men, or agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who fought organized crime in the 1920s and ‘30s. I don’t know if they ate hot cakes but G Men were called gang busters in a radio series and, later, in a television series, two movies, and a series of lurid crime ridden comic books published by DC Comics.

As far as I can tell, if those Moose Lodge members are selling pan cakes like hot cakes, they will have to fry them up with the energy and enthusiasm of F.B.I. agents which, apparently, is pretty energetic.

I told my son this and he told me that he appreciated the clarification. The question I’m left with is why do you say things are selling like hot cakes but never like pan cakes?

Another saying my Grandma had was, “just mind your peas and q’s,” which could well mean I’m tired of all your questions or it could mean keep your nose out of places it doesn’t belong. “For lands sake, Timmy,” she’d say, “just mind your peas and q’s.”

She was making it clear that if I continued with my relentless questions I would find myself in a fine kettle of fish or worse, in hot water.