Spiky Bugger
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- Joined
- Jan 5, 2014
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Those are three things I had never heard a human utter, until I met my late MIL. Are you familiar with those terms?
Yesterday, I was getting irritated with those “tidy up your closet” people who want us to go through our things and pare down. Like pare down those six almost-identical pairs of pants to maybe two pairs. I was irritated because they fit, and they weren’t stained or torn, so why should I get rid of “perfectly good” pants?
But I got tough with myself, spread the pants out on the bed, smoothed the legs with the palms of my hands and lo and behold! THESE were pants my late MIL would declare “knee-sprung.” I reinspected my stash and found several pairs of knee-sprung trousers! (I didn’t bother to check for rump-sprungness.). Now I can move on to hating to go shopping, even online.
Have you figured out “draw damp” yet? Back in the olden times, when we didn’t have clothes dryers, we hung our just-washed clothing, linens, etc on the clothesline to dry. But in the very humid area where MIL lived, clothes would dry, but then later in the day, they would begin to retain moisture from the very humid air. So after we hung the laundry to dry, we had to remember to go out and take it down, before it would “draw damp.”
Thank you for coming to my History of Ohio Valley Colloquialisms TED Talk.
Yesterday, I was getting irritated with those “tidy up your closet” people who want us to go through our things and pare down. Like pare down those six almost-identical pairs of pants to maybe two pairs. I was irritated because they fit, and they weren’t stained or torn, so why should I get rid of “perfectly good” pants?
But I got tough with myself, spread the pants out on the bed, smoothed the legs with the palms of my hands and lo and behold! THESE were pants my late MIL would declare “knee-sprung.” I reinspected my stash and found several pairs of knee-sprung trousers! (I didn’t bother to check for rump-sprungness.). Now I can move on to hating to go shopping, even online.
Have you figured out “draw damp” yet? Back in the olden times, when we didn’t have clothes dryers, we hung our just-washed clothing, linens, etc on the clothesline to dry. But in the very humid area where MIL lived, clothes would dry, but then later in the day, they would begin to retain moisture from the very humid air. So after we hung the laundry to dry, we had to remember to go out and take it down, before it would “draw damp.”
Thank you for coming to my History of Ohio Valley Colloquialisms TED Talk.
