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Ugly Sayings
by Bob Bowman |
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In a recent speech,
we mentioned the use of ugly expressions by East Texans. A friend came by afterward
with a few additions to our list, and concluded our conversation with the observation,
"There must be a million of them floating around."
He's right.
Ugly expressions are, by far, the most popular subject of idioms used by East
Texas' good ol' boys. To bring you up to date on the accumulation, here is a partial
list of ugly sayings used to describe men and women alike.
"She's so
ugly she could snag lightning."
"She's so ugly she has to beat her feet to
go to bed with her."
"So ugly he has to sneak up on a glass of water to get
a drink." "That family is so ugly they could sit behind a tombstone and hatch
ghosts."
"He has a head like a stomped possum."
"She was ugly enough
to scare a haunt up a thorn bush."
"She's twice ugly. Pretty ugly and pretty
likely to stay that way."
"Never marry an ugly girl. She's hard to get shed
of."
"She's tougher than a pig's nose and likely to stay that way."
"She
was whipped by an ugly stick."
"He looks like the dogs have kept him under
the house."
"She's plain as grass."
"Ugliness is the guardian of women."
"She's so ugly she'd sour milk."
"She's so homely she'd stunt a
sour pickle."
"She'd kill young grass with her looks."
"He sure ain't
nothing to write home about."
"She's so ugly she'd scare day into night."
"She's so ugly she'd kill waist-high cotton."
"He's coyote ugly."
"We hung pork chops around his neck so the dogs would play with him."
"Uglier
than wolf pine."
"She wasn't hit with an ugly stick. The whole tree fell
on her."
"Beauty is skin deep, ugly is clean to the bone. When beauty fades,
ugly holds its own."
"Her face has done wore out two bodies."
"She's
make a freight train hit a dirt road."
"He was all broke out with ugly."
"She's got marks all over her body where folks keep touching her with a ten-foot
pole."
"He was so ugly his stickhorse throwed him."
"He's so ugly he
has to sneak up on a mirror."
"He's ugly as a tow sack shirt."
"So ugly
the tide won't take her out."
"His mama takes him everywhere so she won't
have to say goodbye to him."
"He looks like he was pulled through a knothole
backwards."
"She can't help being ugly, but she could stay home."
"He's
ugly as grandpa's toenails."
"We looked up ugly in the dictionary, and found
her picture."
(Bob Bowman, a former president
of the East Texas Historical Association, is the author of 24 books on East Texas
history and folklore. He lives in Lufkin.)
MAY 20-26, 2001
Published
by permission.
East Texas
Towns | | |
