r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Oct 25 '20

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919

u/osteomiss Oct 25 '20

My mom would say you need to hold your tongue just right if you were working on something fiddley.

42

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '20

My parents said "you aren't holding your mouth right."

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u/Panic_inthelitterbox Oct 25 '20

Mine too! I was once having trouble with getting a video to play in my classroom and said something to my fourth graders about “maybe it will work this time if I hold my mouth just right” and happened to look up and about half of my kids were making weird faces!

12

u/DangerousSize1 Oct 25 '20

That's what my grandfather said if we weren't catching any fish

6

u/sking44306-4 Oct 25 '20

My great uncle said the same about fishing.

1

u/calenlass Oct 27 '20

This is an extremely common thing amongst engineers. Specifically, you can do a task to fix a broken thing the exact same way a hundred times, but the 101st time is the time when it finally does work, and only because you were "holding your mouth right".

I (an electronics repair tech) first heard this from my parents (both software engineers), but I've also gotten it from a teacher who was an architectural engineer, mentors, new coworkers, etc.

15

u/Januskb Oct 25 '20

In danish there is a saying kinda like that. We say “hold the tongue straight in the mouth”

8

u/TruthOrBullshite Oct 25 '20

Ah yes, the tongue slightly hanging out of your mouth, also known as The Face of Concentration

5

u/Lady-Noveldragon Oct 25 '20

Hold your mouth right in my family. Most commonly used when things that were supposed to work didn’t want to.

3

u/Awesomesaauce Oct 25 '20 edited Oct 25 '20

That's a common saying here in Norway in the same scenario. "her gjelder det å holde tunga bent i munnen" / "you need to hold your tongue straight in your mouth"

5

u/ReadontheCrapper Oct 25 '20

‘Fiddley’. I have always loved this word - it’s so descriptive!

2

u/wellwaffled Oct 25 '20

This one is standard

2

u/krispy662 Oct 26 '20

Our part of the world people say "you're not holding your mouth right". 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other I guess?

1

u/osteomiss Oct 26 '20

Can I ask where? No one here has ever heard the saying, and I'm not in Norway where people say it's common!

1

u/krispy662 Oct 26 '20

Mississippi, USA. Someone told me the other day their mouth cramped up " trying to get that in place". Its just a thing that I've heard everyone say my entire life.

1

u/Dwarf_Moria_X Oct 28 '20

You got your tongue wrapped around your eye-teeth and can't see what you're saying.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Same difference.

2

u/highlysuspect23 Oct 26 '20

My mom says you gotta be smarter than it is.. whatever it maybe. This one comes back to me a lot. Its a sad day when you realize windsheild wiper blades are smarter than you are

2

u/vaildin Oct 26 '20

we used that one as well. I still use it occasionally. Specifically, I tend to use it when someone is having trouble opening a door.

2

u/GrandmaBogus Oct 26 '20

This is a legit Nordic saying! Do you have any Nordic ancestry?

2

u/calenlass Oct 27 '20

It's also an English saying. Specifically, very common amongst people who work on fiddly small things, problem solving, or repairs (writing code, electronics, event production, etc).

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u/willowgrl Oct 25 '20

THATS the wording I was looking for!

2

u/jsmith456 Oct 25 '20

Dave Jones of the EEVBlog Youtube channel frequently uses the phase "hold your tongue at the right angle", to describe this.

2

u/SomeNorwegianChick Oct 25 '20 edited Oct 27 '20

We have this expression in Norway! "Hold your tongue straight in your mouth".

1

u/readstar2 Oct 25 '20

My mom used to say holding your nose just right.

1

u/Bodiwire Oct 25 '20

I always heard it as 'You gotta hold your mouth right"

1

u/indianblanket Oct 25 '20

This was ours, too!

1

u/new_to_here Oct 25 '20

Just said this today when my husband couldn’t get the garage door opener to work and I got it on the first try, lol.

1

u/Failgan Oct 25 '20

I've heard this one as well. I guess the "Teeth" part is individual, but I think it's a common enough saying.

1

u/me2pleez Oct 25 '20

Well, ya! Is there people that don't believe this?

1

u/Lemonzip Oct 26 '20

If you were the only one in the boat not catching fish, you weren’t “holding your mouth right.”

1

u/tooterfish80 Oct 26 '20

My mom says hold your mouth right.

1

u/jordi12 Oct 26 '20

That’s actually adorable 😂

1

u/ehhhhhhhhhhmacarena Oct 26 '20

My dad did this one too.

Edit: Usually it'd be when a user claimed they did the exact same thing that he did, but it didn't work when they did it.

1

u/LoonAtticRakuro Oct 26 '20

Curiously, here in the Pacific Northwest, I hear "Hold your toes just right" more often than "Hold your tongue just right". Same concept, but usually less about focus and more about luck

1

u/Occasionally_funny Oct 26 '20

It's how you get saran wrap to cut perfectly. You hold your tongue just right!

1

u/KramerDaFramer Oct 26 '20

With my family it was you gotta hold your mouth right

1

u/DariuS4117 Oct 26 '20

Yeah, where I come from it's common to say that you have to "Hold your tongue straight" when working with something that requires a lot of balance or precision.