805-1: Feedback, Notes and Comments

Frosts my grommet Many readers (too many to respond to individually) put me right on this idiom. They explained, often in careful euphemism, that it’s a variation on a ruder phrase that appears in many forms. Lisa McIntyre wrote, “There is a much older, much ruder expression in American English, That really frosts my ass, for things that annoy. There are more polite variations, such as frosts my cookies / cornflakes / cake. I’m guessing substituting grommet for ass is another effort to be more polite, with the grommet alluding to the anus. Plus, grommet is a satisfying word to say, especially if one is irritated!”

Steve Kenney confirmed, “I’ve heard the same basic phrase beginning with frosts my followed by any body part or pretty much anything that could be frosted. A similar expression is chaps my ass and is also used to express extreme disappointment.” John C Britton noted, “It was a bit of an eye-opener when I heard a woman say Well, that frosts my balls!” Ellen Sheffer wrote, “When I was younger (in the year dot), the mother of a friend always said Well, if that don’t just frost my gizzard! This was in Vermont, where gizzards and other things are very liable to be frosted come the winter!” Kelly Erickson reports having come across frosts my pumpkin and frosts my buns from time to time.

And finally, Jonathan Phillips responded, “Am I alone in finding certain words comic, irrespective of their meaning? Do we not all tend to giggle inwardly at the same words? Flange, Grommet, Gusset and Throb, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths?”. Some words are indeed intrinsically humorous — it isn’t an accident that the lead characters in the Aardman Animations films are called Wallace and Gromit.

Chissicking Peter Hartog commented, “Chissicking would be an appropriate description of one of the characteristic noises made by magpie robins, a common sight — and sound — in suburban gardens of Bangkok. They are most active when hunting insects just before dawn and around dusk. At these times they emit harsh sounds I have previously described as rasping and have also compared to throat-clearing coughs.” Gill Dunn wrote from the UK: “Like many birders, if I heard chissicking I would immediately look for a pied wagtail. Hearing one pass overhead has often been called a Chiswick Flyover.” (The Chiswick Flyover is an elevated motorway in west London; we Brits pronounce Chiswick as chissick.) Also from the UK, Neil Paknadel found the noun as a description of the sound made by the house sparrow; it was in The Birds of Britain and Europe by Heinzel, Fitter & Parslow (1972): “Vocabulary of chirps and cheeps, with a double ‘chissick’, sometimes strung together as a rudimentary song.”

Year dot Peter Weinrich e-mailed: “You write of the year dot that you are not convinced users have thought it referred back as far as the mythical year between 1BCE and 1CE. I can only say that all my life, certainly in our family, that imaginary year is exactly what it did refer to and my grandparents used it in that sense. Had I been asked, that is the definition I would have given. Hardly proof enough to contradict you though!”

“Regarding the year dot,” Ewan Croal recalled, “a common way to describe a long time since (syne) when I was growing up in Scotland was the phrase in eighteen oatcake. It just means that something has been done this way for a very long time, usually longer than living memory! I assume it is just one of those nonsense phrases, where both halves reinforce each other: “How long have craftsmen been making sporrans this way?” “Oh, since at least eighteen oatcake!”