french fries on the stove

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

     Maybe this is a good lead (or maybe not): A check of Google shows a long list of "Yo' Momma's Insults" listed under "Suzanne's Yo' Momma Jokes," and most of them deal with someone's mother being fat. Sample: "You momma's so fat, she jumped into the ocean, and the whales started singing, 'We are family.'"

   The radio host evidently made his remark about the French fries as an offshoot of those "Yo' momma's insults."  It must have been "get the French fries OFF the stove" (not ON) ; implication: so yo' momma won't eat them all and get even fatter. Extended meaning: Better get everything ready/have everything in order beforehand.

     Or might there have been some sexual reference here that I'm overlooking?
(A number of the insults do have a sexual reference.)

Gerald Cohen

> ----------
> From:         American Dialect Society on behalf of Steve Kl.
> Sent:         Tuesday, October 12, 2004 7:52 AM
> Subject:           french fries on the stove
>
> This morning I did a radio interview with an AM station in New London, CT, and the radio host used an idiom that I've never heard before. I'm not even sure what he meant, but he said you've got to put (or get?) "your french fries on [or off?] the stove before your momma gets home".
>
> Contextually, I think he meant it to mean "have everything in order" but I'm not even sure of that, because I wasn't sure if he said "on" or "off".
>
> I was so struck by this that I wrote it down while talking to him -- has anyone ever heard of this expression before, and if so, what does it mean?
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>
> -- Steve Kl.
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>