Do you Google those sayings your parents and grandparents had? One popped in my head today from when I was a child
Put your shoes on Lucy, we’re going to town.
My Mother often said it when I was small and it was time to get ready to go somewhere. I had always assumed it was a phrase she had made up. It wasn’t. The first part was from a song originally recorded in 1949. My Mother would have been seven years old. It’s possible that my Grandmother was the one, at least in my family, added the “we’re going to town” part of the little phrase indicating it was time to get ready.
Google searches for those phrases or sayings your relative liked to say may provide a general clue to your family’s ethnic heritage, tell you that a unique phrase isn’t as unique as you thought, give you a history/cultural lesson, or allow you to augment a family story with some pop culture details.
Newspaper searches for those same phrases may be helpful as well.
I’ll never think of that phrase in the same way again. Even listed to a YouTube recording of the song.
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