Potty Mouth or Environment of Upbringing?

Sometimes my husband gets aggravated at my coloful language. He did not grow up with colorful language. Now that my chidlren are grown and gone I find myself often reverting to phrases my parents used. Even though, or perhaps because, my mother was a preacher's kid she had a vast array of phrases and idioms such as "She doesn't know shit from Shinola!" I know that Shinola was shoe polish, did you?

 

I might blog some about these phrases that sprinkled my childhood with strange pictures and weird rabbit trial thoughts.

 

Wouldn't you know you can Google the phrase and get this:

 

Meaning

Possessing poor judgment or knowledge.

Origin

Shinola was a brand of shoe polish previously manufactured in the USA. The alliteration and the fact that the two commodities in the phrase could possibly be confused is the derivation. The distinction is well made; only one of them would be good to apply to your shoes and only particularly dim people could be expected to muddle them up. Of course, outside America, most people don't know Shinola from anything at all, as they've never heard of it. Even in America it would probably not be widely remembered but for this phrase.

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