Weird Childhood Mystery Explained
Posted on | April 15, 2005 at 12:48 pm | 4 Comments
Yesterday, one of my co-workers was talking about how she is allergic to cedar and that the cedar count was currently high, aggravating her allergies. In my worst Beavis & Butthead voice, I went “Heh hee??? she said cedar“. Everyone looked at me like I was clinically retarded. I had to explain that my mother (a good Catholic, who, her entire life, never used any word that could even remotely be interpreted as a swear word) referred to the body part commonly known as the rear end, butt, ass, etc. as the “cedar”. As in “Set your cedar down in that chair!”, “Do what I say or I’ll spank you cedar!”, or “Wow, you don’t really have a cedar!” (I’m sure this explains a number of childhood traumas, which may have lasted into my alleged adulthood, but that’s a different topic.) Not one of my co-workers had ever heard that expression before. I thought maybe it was a German thing, since my mom’s parents were German.
But then I got to thinking about it. For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe what she really was saying was “seater”, not “cedar”. Makes more sense. So why did my very young mind always picture the word as the wood/tree instead? What does that say about me?
More importantly, I wonder if this is something that was peculiar to my mom (which maybe she got from her parents), or is something more universal? A web search has been no help in this matter. Anyone ever heard that expression before?
Time to get my cedar back to work???
Latre.
Comments
4 Responses to “Weird Childhood Mystery Explained”
April 16th, 2005 @ 12:09 am
My maternal family has two things I’ve never heard anyone else say:
white trash = “sagers”
poop = “oonks”
(spelling approximate on both)
Don’t have the poop about cedar/seater, though.
April 16th, 2005 @ 12:14 am
By the way, I too have never heard my mom say a cuss word. In fact, I wasn’t allowed even to say stuff like “golly” or “heck,” because saying a substitute for the cuss word meant that you thought the actual “bad word.” And that, to her, was just as bad as saying the words for which “heck” and “darn” were milder stand-ins.
April 16th, 2005 @ 12:15 pm
Miles, my mom was the exact same way. No exclamations allowed! Although I’m thinking now maybe that was due more to repression and something pent up inside her. Emotional distance and all that.
Luckily, my dad had his workshop where he could retreat to and mutter profanities to himself all he wished.
April 16th, 2005 @ 6:53 pm
I too have never, never, NEVER heard a cuss word outta my mom. My dad used to curse in Swedish when I was a kid, as if I wouldn’t figure out eventually what fan i helvete or j??vlar meant.