Meaning: It’s an old fashion term and a mild expression of surprise, alarm, dismay, annoyance, or exasperation.

History: The word land’s is a replacement for using Lord or God.

Memory: I remember her giggle every time she said it, and I now understand why my grandmother used this idiom — she was probably surprised at what my family was telling her. What made me laugh was that references allude to this type of swearing as a softened form of it so wouldn't sound rude. So, the bottom line is, my grandmother swore a lot in a day. Just sayin’.

Meaning: Almost, but not quite successful.

History: In the early 20th century, a cigar was given as a prize at carnivals. If you didn’t win, the guy running the game would yell this at the top of his lungs!

Memory: When I was a kid, I yelled this idiom whenever I won a game while playing with my siblings. They got mad so many times because I won almost every time. Good times!

Meaning: A slang word used to claim the right to do or choose something first before others.

History: From England in the 1800’s, where boys played a game with knuckle bones of a sheep, similar to the game Jacks. If they couldn’t find the bones, they would use dibstones, which is like a pebble, and shortened to ‘dibs’. It’s not clear how the term started, but it’s speculated that depending on how the stones fell, a player would have an advantage.

Memory: My mother would buy these terrible maple cookies shaped like a maple leaf, and she would also bake about three dozen with a ton of raisins. We never touched those and almost gagged at the smell of them. It made me realize that my parents knew what they were doing. At least, they’d have some cookies around for themselves, but our favorite ones were chocolate chip. I would always call dibs on the last one. It wasn’t always easy to fight the other three off from calling it, so I would tell them I touched it, or worse, spit on it.

My parents were smart cookies . They knew to buy what they liked, because if we ate them, we would toss our cookies . At least I was one tough cookie . My siblings didn’t have a chance to grab the last chocolate chip cookie. Too bad for them because that's the way the cookie crumbles .