You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it, I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett. We've received lots of responses to our conversation about the phrase,

off we go, like a herd of turtles. It's that expression that's most often used by parents when

they're trying to round up the kids and get them out the door. We heard from Joanna Jarvis,

who lives in Santa Cruz, California, who said that saying really took her back because her father

used that expression when he was trying to get everybody into the car. She writes,

we were four kids and I can't imagine it was easy corralling us. But the other thing that he would

always say during those moments was, here we go, laughing and scratching. I don't know. What do you

picture? I'm picturing like a troop of monkeys. I am too, do you know? Children are often compared to

monkeys like scratching in uncouth places and howling and chattering. Yeah, I'm picturing the

barrel just emptying. Here we go, laughing and scratching. But it turns out that her dad wasn't

the only person who used this expression. In a 1939 newspaper column by Walter Winchell,

he writes about the Hollywood director Archie Mayo, who directed actors like May West and Humphrey

Bogart. And one of his last films was a night in Casablanca with the Marks Brothers.

And supposedly Archie Mayo instead of saying action when he started to direct a scene would say,

here we go, laughing and scratching. I can imagine with the Marks Brothers, it was totally

appropriate. Can you imagine the chaos on set with those guys? That was not a herd of turtles.

We'd love to hear from you about the things that your family said when you were growing up or

the things that you say now in your own family, whether it's older, new, whether it's something that

you've invented or something that you heard share it with us. 87, 7, 7, 9, 2, 9, 9, 6, 7, 3,

that's toll free in the US and Canada 24 hours a day. And no matter where you are in the world,

you can email us words at waywardradier.org or tell us on Twitter at W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

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