Inspired by an article in The New Yorker, lately I've been rereading my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I've always been a fan of Pa's colorful exclamations, so I decided to compile some favorites here:
"You're only a little half-pint of cider half drunk up, but by Jinks! you're as strong as a little French horse!"
-Little House in the Big Woods, after Laura scrambled over the wood box with Mary in tow
"Hurry! I'm hungry as a wolf!"
-Little House on the Prairie, encouraging Laura and Mary to help him skin a rabbit
"Cattle, by George!"
-Little House on the Prairie, hearing a strange, low, distant sound
"Now, by the Great Horn Spoon, I'll milk her!"
-Little House on the Prairie, after being kicked by his cow
"Jiminy crickets! It's raining fish-hooks and hammer handles!"
-On the Banks of Plum Creek, during a hard rain
"Can't see a thing! It's dark as a stack of black cats!"
-On the Banks of Plum Creek, on a particularly dark night
"Great weasels in the cash box! You've got to be shitting me!"
-On the Banks of Plum Creek, when the grasshoppers returned for the second year
"Gosh all hemlock! but it's growing cold fast!"
-The Long Winter, on a chilly pre-blizzard night
"Jerusalem crickets! This is a humdinger!"
-The Long Winter, on the first morning of a notable storm
"Well I'll be a prideful waltzing whoremaster; if it isn't the Christmas turkey!"
-The Long Winter, upon the long-awaited delivery of the Christmas barrel
Pa had such a way with words.
2 comments:
I really must read BPC and TLW again.... Thanks for making my day merry and bright.
A couple of those are fake, right? You've got to be shitting me, whoremaster.
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