218 Frogs

He kept all 218 frogs in the wheelbarrow.
– Trey Gowdy, Congressman (ret’d)

I didn’t quite spit out my unsweetened iced tea. Trey (we’re on a first-name basis because I’ve seen him on TV) was describing Speaker Mike Johnson’s success in navigating a vote with his narrow majority of 218 fractious Republican congresspersons. But this is not a political post. (I say again . . . .)

Since Trey retired from the congressman gig several years ago and returned to practicing law in his native South Carolina, I’ve seen him on TV as a political commentator (occasionally). He’s Southern-polite (invariably), interesting (almost always), insightful (usually), and screamingly funny (often). I thought I knew most of his distinctive habits of speech, but this expression was a new one on me. Keeping the frogs in the wheelbarrow?

Was it a southern or even a specific-to-South-Carolina expression, I wondered, or did he just make it up as an apt substitute for “herding cats”? Was it something idiosyncratic that might reasonably pass for a regionalism? Was my good friend Trey just messing with us?

I was leaning to this latter explanation–Trey can be a minx–but it didn’t take long to put this suspicion to bed. Someone who has better research skills than I do took a look at this expression about 8 years ago and found several political citations (all referring to the US Congress) (go figure) (I say again . . .), and a handful of similar expressions from as early as 1994 talking about diverse activities:

• managing projects (a comment seen on a British site; commenter’s nationality not specified)
• organizing a populist movement (a comment from a Texas activist)
• teaching 150 kids and their parents to compose and perform an original piece of music (a comment by a New York journalist on an effort apparently undertaken by a teacher, possibly but not necessarily also from New York)

All good, but that little question still lingered: Did he make it up? Well, not if Trey is the “he”, I get that, but *some he* made it up, didn’t they? Expressions don’t just hatch by themselves.

Then I got to thinking. If some as-yet unidentified “he” could deploy this lovely expression that should be an old southern idiom but doesn’t seem to be, then why can’t anyone? Asking, as they say, for a friend. Asking, as some others say, for all y’all.

Well, anyone can, my friends. We can all develop colourful expressions for our own region: things that sound local and just a wee bit quaint. They mustn’t be too cutesy, of course: That would be a dead-as-roadkill giveaway. (See what this Albertan just did there?) (Of course you do.)

Even better, we can develop fake regionalisms for other parts of the country. I think that was part of the deal in repatriating the constitution. So here is my initial offering of Canadian regional expressions for different occasions.

BC – As jumpy as salmon in a fish ladder.
AB – As unlikely as a windshield with no rock chips.
SK – As lovely as barley down your shirt.
MB – As calm as grasshoppers in a hot metal wagon.
ON – You can’t make maple syrup from maple leaves.
QC – Tais toi! Why are you talking about frogs?
NB – You can parler in two langues,
but you can only comprendre in one.
NS – An apple a day keeps the sailboat away.
PE – They kept the lobsters in the pot.
NL – Strong like moose; sharp like bowling ball.

Hm. It’s just barely possible that this is harder than it looks. (That’s why you have me. A politician, even a retired one, wouldn’t likely be that forthcoming with you.) It’s another reminder to appreciate the language that we have: from initial coining to ongoing polishing, both kinds of idioms–the new-to-us and the so-old-we-don’t-even-hear-them-anymore–anyway, both kinds represent significant community effort over a long time. So, learn them, use them, treasure them, and always take your wheelbarrow with you. You never know when you might need it.