It’s time to get down to the nut cuttin’.

• Jim Wuest of Vancouver, B.C. sent this powerful Alberta expression. Jim writes, “Sending pithy sayings to my now adult children has long been a joy for me. As well, I use such expressions for emphasis when I’m reporting to clients, for I have a management consulting practice. Most often, the response is a slight startle, then a smile, then recognition of the purpose of the comment, and finishing with a laugh.

I’ve just encountered your 3rd edition of Canadian Sayings. Grand!  Now I’m out to find your volumes 1 and 2. Darned if I don’t have a collection!

This is my favourite saying. Circumstance and location? Memory often casts a rosy, nostalgic hue over accurate recall, but this seems right: I first heard this on a big south-western Alberta cattle ranch at a summer branding in 1960. The Cow Boss prodded his cattle crew with: “It’s time to get down to the nut cuttin’.” Time for the nitty-gritty, the main purpose before us. I use it to bring a conversation to the most important point, conclusion or decision. Gets people’s attention every time.”

 

 

 

This rough expression refers to castrating a bull calf when it weighs five or six hundred pounds, usually in the feed lot. After castration, it’s a steer and fattens up to about 1100 pounds. By then it’s a yearling or a bit older and it is slaughtered for its meat. Do you find the process ugly and revolting to contemplate. Well then: give up hamburgers!

                                   

© 2007 William Gordon Casselman

 

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