Does anyone know this phrase?
Posted by minor-neck-injury-5@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 53 comments
My dad used to tell me about how my grandfather used to say the phrase "luckier than a goat with nine asses". We have looked everywhere for someone else using this, and we have had no luck at all. We aren't sure if he just...made this up or if it's actually from somewhere or someone. I'm not even sure why a goat would be lucky to have nine asses. Has anyone ever heard of this, or even heard something along the lines of this?? I figure it's a Southern phrase since it follows the same pattern but he was from Idaho.
Technical-Bath9108@reddit
I've heard the phrase "hotter'n a two-peckered billy goat."
Born-Business-2628@reddit
My great grandparents always used animal in phrases but we live in the Deep South and had a farm so it was pretty common.
Have a Cow
Madder than a wet hen
Hotter than a half fucked fox in a fire đź’€
JustWatchingthefun01@reddit
I have heard all those used. Relative’s the are farmers or ranchers know all of them
alwaysboopthesnoot@reddit
9 asses or donkey companions, or a goat with 9 asses/butts?Â
firestorm_v1@reddit
Holy crap, it's one I actually know... It's an old farmer's phrase but it's not talking about butts.
On farms, it's common to have a few donkeys as guard dogs in pens with smaller animals to protect against wolves and coyotes. Donkeys (asses) are perfect for this as they are very particular about who/what they let in their area and will otherwise beat the shit out of anything that poses a threat/they don't like. So, a goat that's in a pen with nine asses (donkeys) is a very lucky goat as it's got a ton of protection against bad things happening.
I don't really have a source for this other than some redneck in central Texas that has a goat farm next to a chunk of property a friend of mine owns.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Oh ha. I know donkeys are great guard dogs but I never heard that specific phrase and wouldn't have put two and two together.
As a complete side note my aunt and uncle named one of their donkeys "Hotay" as in Don Quixote... donkey Hotay. I knew that donkey for years before my aunt clued me in on the name.
SurroundingAMeadow@reddit
There was a donkey named Hodie who lived in a windmill on Mister Rogers Neighborhood. There's now a spinoff children's puppet show, Donkey Hodie, on PBS Kids.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Oooooh I need to ask my aunt now if that’s where they cribbed the name from.
MissFabulina@reddit
I love your aunt and uncle. That is a great name!
CupBeEmpty@reddit
They are just stupidly excellent people.
If you want to meet the finest midwestern curmudgeon my uncle is your man. If you want a party planned or a land developer fucked with my aunt is your go to.
HayTX@reddit
Yes this is how I was told and interpreted it too. Also when the old guys got salty they would say they are hotter than a two pecker goat.
lflj91@reddit
I always heard it, hotter than a three peckered Billy goat in a pepper patch.
Old-Vermicelli7116@reddit
I was going to add that one.
Express-Stop7830@reddit
I've never heard the phrase, but this explanation was my immediate interpretation.
lastmouseoutthemaze@reddit
Yep, this is correct.
BassTacos242@reddit
This should be higher
jacklondon19044@reddit
Never heard of it, and if it was about guard donkeys it must have been recent. In the US it’s more of a recent thing due to the BLM adopt a donkey program, and up until the late 1970s any coyote or unknown dog would be shot on sight
WokeUpIAmStillAlive@reddit
Goats fuck... if he has nine asses, he then has nine female goats. He is getting lucky all of them. That should clear it up.
WildlifePolicyChick@reddit
Never heard it!
BulkyTiger8706@reddit
That honestly sounds like one of those homemade grandpa sayings that just feels like a real Southern idiom but isn’t. The “goat with nine asses” part is probably just absurd-on-purpose humor, like old folks exaggerating nonsense to mean insanely lucky. Wouldn’t be surprised if he made it up and just committed to it till it sounded legit.
GorgeousBog@reddit
Am I tripping or are you an AI
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Yeah and they get taken from all kinds of references. My dad used to say “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” When I was young my dad used it with all us kids when we did anything that was seven mildly “against the rules.”
I didn’t see Blazing Saddles until years later.
I love all my family’s little “in jokes.” Some make sense on the surface others need a bit of explanation but can usually be understood in context.
I get luckier than a goat with 9 asses even though it makes absolutely no sense on the surface.
Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit
Blazing Saddles was playing on another film, The Treasure of The Sierra Madre, which is where the phrase came from.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Well damn I learned something new today. I wonder if my dad knew it was Mel Brooks spoofing on SIerra Madre. He's of an age where he may have seen the original.
Frosty_Employment171@reddit
Blazing Saddles? How the world changes. The line is originally from Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I don't recall if it is in the book, it's been decades since I read it, but it is certainly in the 1948 film.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Ha really? I know it from Blazing Saddles because my dad loved it. Thats where he got the joke.
I'd love to tell the old man that Mel Brooks actually pinched the joke from Sierra Madre. I don't even know if he ever watched (or read) that. He's in his 70s so its not absurd to think he might know both. I'll have to ask.
superhex12345@reddit
Yep. My grandfather had a ton of them. We still say them all the time.
Sweet_Cinnabonn@reddit
Never heard it
2Asparagus1Chicken@reddit
Yes, I heard that one before!
PeanutterButter101@reddit
Sandy Cheeks lingo.
milbur5477@reddit
The only thing I've heard close is my dad used to say. " he's luckier then a 2 peckered bully goat."
Gremlin1001001@reddit
I know quite a few sayings like this, but I have never heard of this one!
mmmkay938@reddit
It’s possible it’s a variation of “luckier that a two(insert number of choice)-peckered goat”
https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/ree-drummond-life/a2473/cowboy-colloquialism-june-15-2006/
LiverPickle@reddit
Hmm, I know that as “busier than a three-peckered hillbilly at a goat fucking contest”
Jackalope_Sasquatch@reddit
I've heard that same construction but with a puppy as the animal...
minor-neck-injury-5@reddit (OP)
Ohh it could, thank you very much!
DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit
Never heard that. It doesn't even make sense
StewReddit2@reddit
From what I gather.....it's rural/country/redneck
To refer to being fortunate/lucky
Goats at one point ( I guess I'm more city tbh) were protected from predators on the farm/whatever by having ASSES ( donkeys) around
Something about nine-fold protection of the herd .
Goats are herd animals that stress easy....I believe saying is referring to a goat or small herd of goats.....basically had a "lock-down-ASS-level" of impenetrable protection and safety with 9 effing goats on the prowl making sure they survived attacks aka Guardian Angels to keep 'em alive!
abcedarian@reddit
Send it in to the radio show Way With Words. They'll figure out if it's something or if it's unique to your grandfather
machagogo@reddit
I have never heard this in my 50+ years
Yeahboyeah@reddit
Moonshine is a helluva drug.
QueenShewolf@reddit
I thought it was something in the potatoes if it came from Idaho.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
I mean you know what you can make with potatoes right?
QueenShewolf@reddit
Good point!
Cheap_Coffee@reddit
I have never heard that phrase.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Never once heard or used this phrase and that’s saying a lot because I have been all over the country in my life.
But in honor of your papaw and your family I will say it in front of my children.
I am not entirely sure if 9 asses is luckier than 7 or 13 or what monstrous genetic mutation lead to this multiple ass situation with the poor goat. But your grandfather will live on rent free in my head.
Vachic09@reddit
No
kcdashinfo@reddit
Yeah, that is something you might hear, it is a play on the "a cat has nine lives" idiom. A goat that had nine lives would be lucky, as the goat would be the least to have nine lives or luck.
QueenShewolf@reddit
Maybe over in potato land where your grandfather is from, but not here in New York.
If not, your grandfather's saying gave me a chuckle!
Comfortable-Jump-218@reddit
I typed the phrase into Google just to see if it appeared anywhere and you are literally the only person on the internet who has ever said this phrase.
Neither_Cup_8294@reddit
Sometimes there are phrases and words that are only used in your family, it is especially popular in rural areas. Sometimes phrases don’t have to mean anything particular, it could’ve been said in a humorous way.
minor-neck-injury-5@reddit (OP)
Yeah, from what I know of him he was born in raised in a very rural area, so it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if this is where he got it.
Smart_Engine_3331@reddit
Im from the US and have never heard this. It's either regional or just made up.