topic Re: Something Funny in Community Chat

Something Funny

QVCkitty1 — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 23:37:37 GMT

I was looking at old pictures today, and when I saw my grandma it made me think of something she often said, especially when referring to my

aunt. " She's independent as a hog on ice." I've looked it up and it makes no sense to me, but I wondered if any older members of your family ever said this ? Maybe it's regional, she was raised in the country outside Ithaca NY.

Re: Something Funny

luvmybeetle — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 23:46:34 GMT

To me it sounds like she is not as independent as she thinks because you can't be if you are sliding on slippery ice. You would be sliding all over the place and can't stand still to be independently strong. So therefore the person is fooling herself.

Re: Something Funny

Sheila P-Burg — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 23:55:14 GMT

Described from Google ....... Denoting independence, awkwardness, or insecurity. Origin of phrase unknown.

Re: Something Funny

QVCkitty1 — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 23:59:06 GMT

@luvmybeetle wrote:
To me it sounds like she is not as independent as she thinks because you can't be if you are sliding on slippery ice. You would be sliding all over the place and can't stand still to be independently strong. So therefore the person is fooling herself.

@luvmybeetle , That sounds like something Grandma might say.

Re: Something Funny

on the bay — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:19:43 GMT

@QVCkitty1 -

I've never heard that but I have heard,

"she, he, takes to (fill in the blank!)_______ as a hog takes to waller

Re: Something Funny

panda1234 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 05:05:05 GMT

@QVCkitty1 wrote:
I was looking at old pictures today, and when I saw my grandma it made me think of something she often said, especially when referring to my
aunt. " She's independent as a hog on ice." I've looked it up and it makes no sense to me, but I wondered if any older members of your family ever said this ? Maybe it's regional, she was raised in the country outside Ithaca NY.

@QVCkitty1 I am from Ithaca and never heard that said.What town outside Ithaca did she live in?

Re: Something Funny

cotton4me — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 07:04:21 GMT

I grew up in a family with a lot strange sayings (Pennsylvania Dutch); however, I never heard this one.

I found a blog written by a woman whose father used the phrase. He was from Iowa. She set out to find the meaning and here's some of what she wrote.

"Strangely enough, I’m not the only one who has been confused by this saying. This phrase has been baffling people for decades. Yes, decades! Etymologists started searching for an explanation from the time it first appeared in the mid 19th century. In 1948 Charles Earle Funk titled his first book of word origins “A Hog on Ice”. His foreword contains a seven (7!) page narrative of his inconclusive quest for the roots of this phrase.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase as “denoting independence, awkwardness, or insecurity.” That about sums it up for a hog that’s slip-n-sliding across the ice, much like Thumper and Bambi in the Disney animated feature. “You’re doing it your way, and making a mess of it,” was what my father meant by his independent-as-a-hog-on-ice speech.

Time magazine usage in 1948, “They like to think of themselves as independents … independent as a hog on ice.”

Re: Something Funny

QVCkitty1 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 11:38:01 GMT

@panda1234 wrote:
@QVCkitty1 wrote:
I was looking at old pictures today, and when I saw my grandma it made me think of something she often said, especially when referring to my
aunt. " She's independent as a hog on ice." I've looked it up and it makes no sense to me, but I wondered if any older members of your family ever said this ? Maybe it's regional, she was raised in the country outside Ithaca NY.
@QVCkitty1 I am from Ithaca and never heard that said.What town outside Ithaca did she live in?

@panda1234 I think , Newfield, but I'm not positive .

Re: Something Funny

panda1234 — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 08:33:28 GMT

@QVCkitty1 wrote:
@panda1234 wrote:
@QVCkitty1 wrote:
I was looking at old pictures today, and when I saw my grandma it made me think of something she often said, especially when referring to my
aunt. " She's independent as a hog on ice." I've looked it up and it makes no sense to me, but I wondered if any older members of your family ever said this ? Maybe it's regional, she was raised in the country outside Ithaca NY.
@QVCkitty1 I am from Ithaca and never heard that said.What town outside Ithaca did she live in?
@panda1234 I think , Newfield, but I'm not positive .

@QVCkitty1. I know Newfield, had cousins that lived there. There is nothing there, very isolated.