"What the hell are you talking about?"
He cackled with laughter. "I don't know. But my grandfather used to ask me that all the time and I thought it was funny. I think it means - how's your belly button."
"Oh. Well my belly button's fine as far as I know. Thanks for asking."
My belly button may have been fine but the rest of me wasn't. I had to know what was behind all of this...
According to R. K. Guest of Erdington, England, his grandfather had been a slaughterer of pigs by means of knife to the throat while the victim lay hog-tied on it's back on a bench - leaving the teeth at the executioner's belly-level, and one had to be careful of bites.
In A Dictionary of Catch Phrases (Routledge, 2003) by Eric Partridge, the phrase is pegged a facetious greeting originating circa 1930.
The Aussies, ever the chanters of peculiar sayings, are largely credited with keeping this saying alive. A national survey puts the phrase just into the top 400 Aussieisms alongside If I bought a kangaroo it wouldn't hop [I'm unlucky], Since God's dog was a pup [since a long time] and A few snags short of a barbie [not all there].
Snags means sausages... in case you were wondering.
Uh oh... J is coming up next.
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