From trousers to roosters, it’s your turn to crow
Last Thursday, I wrote about the expression “a corker of a day.” I asked if you might have some weather-related saying you’d like to share. As always, your response was overwhelming and very enjoyable.
From Stuart Semple:
“I am an Australian by birth; the term ‘corker’ could be heard in our family as late as 1990. It meant ‘exceptional’ and often related to very hot weather. My father was born in 1896 and used it often. I doubt that American baseball lingo had penetrated the country by that time.
We are so fortunate to have your daily postings.”
— Stuart
Well, Stuart, it looks like that expression goes back to the 1860s — “A corker, in the 1860s, was a hit that flew from the bat like the cork from a champagne bottle, usually resulting in a home run.”
Cheryl Phillips and Pol Vincter in Mount Denson, N.S.:
“My late mother-in-law, Phyllis Phillips of Woodstock, N.B., a very wise woman, used to say to me as we crested the 101 Highway at exit 9 westbound (Avonport), with a stunning view of Cape Blomidon, in the mists of the Minas Basin:
‘Fog in the hollow, fine day to follow. Fog on the hill, water to the mill!’
I found it to be a very accurate prediction of the next day’s weather.
Cheers, Cindy.”
This one is from Stephanie Horan from Staffordshire, England, where she was raised. She now lives on the beautiful North Shore of Nova Scotia:
“If extensive cloud cover was beginning to clear, my Dad would say: if there was enough blue sky to knit a Dutchman a pair of trousers, then the weather was going to improve.”
— Stephanie Horan, Wallace Ridge, N.S.
This one is for our friends in eastern Newfoundland who have been dealing with lots of fog:
“I come from England where the term ‘that’ll be a foggy Friday’, or ‘that will happen on a foggy Friday,’ referred to something that will not happen.”
— Ian Brown
On the heels of a recent “butter gate”:
“Hi Cindy. Similar to yourself, I grew up on a farm, in my case, near Drumheller, Alberta. On the cold, bitter winter days, my father
called them ‘the days of hard butter.’ An uninsulated farmhouse with no central heat in the late ‘40s, we had many days of ‘hard butter.’”
— Stewart Russell
I’ve had this one on my desktop for over a year now, but I think it’s a fun way to wrap things up:
“I grew up in the province of Drenthe in the northeast of The Netherlands. I heard a saying in the local dialect: ‘As de haan op de mestbult stiet te kreien, dan veraandert ‘t weer of ‘t blef zo.’
Translated, it means: ‘When the rooster crows on the manure pile, the weather changes or stays the same.’ A truer saying there never was!
We enjoy reading your column!”
— Geesje Nienhuis
I so enjoy hearing from you. Thank you for indulging me, and may the wind always be at your back!