Off Like a Herd of Turtles or a Turd of Hurtles

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Daniel Vitullo. I’m calling from Youngstown, Ohio.

Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

So I’ve always had this question in my head, and I’ve never really been able to find an answer.

Whenever I would get in my papa’s car when I was younger, without missing a beat, you would always say, we’re off like a herd of turtles or a turd of hurdles.

And now I don’t know if he just came up with this. I’ve tried to look it up before, but I’ve never found out.

And he was a kind of kooky dude.

Kooky dude.

So herd of turtles. This was your father or your grandfather?

My grandfather.

Grandfather.

Grandfather.

Okay.

We’re off like a herd of turtles.

And did he mean anything more than we’re leaving?

No, it was just every time we got in the car to go somewhere, it was, we’re off like a herd of turtles or a herd of hurdles. You know what, Daniel, I’ve never heard the turd of hurdles part. I really like that. The other expression, we’re off like a herd of turtles. A lot of people say it’s one of several sort of fanciful sayings for taking off like that. Like we’re off like a dirty shirt at the end of the day, or we’re off in a cloud of whale dust, and we’re off like a herd of turtles. I mean, it’s funny, isn’t it, for several reasons. I mean, first of all, I don’t think herd is the right word for turtles. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a herd of turtles. I once tried to find the collective noun for a bunch of turtles, and some people say the word is bale, B-A-L-E, a bale of turtles. What your dad does with playing with the words is really funny. It’s what we call a spoonerism, where you switch those letters around. Like you say, the Lord is a shoving leopard instead of the Lord is a loving shepherd, that kind of thing. And it goes back quite a ways to the 1930s, at least ever since then, people have been saying off like a herd of turtles. But Martha, you talked about off like a dirty shirt, but that implies speed where a herd of turtles is rather slow and disorganized.

Really slow and disorganized. I wonder if your grandfather was hoping people would hurry up and get in the car.

You would think that, but we always had to, you know, we had plans with him. We’d always have to set the time a half an hour earlier just for him. And so he would show up just on time. He was always tardy. He was more turtle-like, huh?

Yeah. Yes, yes, he was.

Well, he sounds like a clever guy.

Yeah, kooky dude.

Oh, yeah, he is.

Thank you, Daniel.

No, thank you very much.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Take off like a dirty shirt and call us, 877-929-9673, or email us, words@waywordradio.org.