Q:  I was blessed with a mother from Central Texas whose speech was enriched with phantom diphthongs (“Let’s go out to the raynch”), stony rhotics (“and rahde harrsses”), and funny sayings. Recently, while shopping with a girlfriend, a Yankee from New Jersey, I lamented that my bank account was down to “chips and whetstones.” My friend had never heard the expression and asked if it was a Texas saying. I had to think about it for a while, to no avail. Is it?

Molly Dare, San Marcos, California

A: The Texanist, as a native speaker of Texan, is quite familiar with the crazy colloquialisms, disparate dialects, idiotic idioms, and funny phraseologies used across the Lone Star State. Indeed, he’s heard them all. 

Or so he thought. The Texanist must admit that he was as perplexed as a possum at a pool party by this whole “chips and whetstones” business, which was a new one on him. Looking for an assist, he turned to his trusted Texas Monthly colleagues. Yet not one of his coworkers was familiar with the expression. (Though one smart aleck did aver that chips and whetstones “sounded delicious.”)

Further research turned up two examples of the term unrelated to the usage you’ve proposed here, Ms. Dare: apparently, “chips and whetstones” is the name of a pattern used by quilters and the title of a 1913 book of poetry (written by a Kentuckian, alas). The Texanist did, however, find one relevant connection: Texas politician (and Tex-Mex dip namesake) Bob Armstrong used the phrase in a 1999 video interview while describing the piecemeal nature of small, state-owned parcels of property. “As my old law partner used to say, they were chips and whetstones,” he said. Armstrong died in 2015, so the Texanist wasn’t able to check in with him; nor could he ask his former law partner Charles “Lefty” Morris, who is also deceased.

Thankfully, Lars Hinrichs, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who directs the Texas English Linguistics Lab, is still with us. Hinrichs turned to the Dictionary of American Regional English and—to the Texanist’s surprise—found a “chips and whetstones” entry. The definition, “in small amounts; by small degrees,” fits with your usage, Ms. Dare. But the region with which the phrase is most associated does not: it’s “Midland”—which is an academic reference to middle America, not to the oil-rich city in the middle of the Permian Basin. 

Hinrichs did note that the Midland region is sometimes thought to include the Texas Panhandle, which means that “chips and whetstones” might, by the skin of its teeth, qualify as a Texas idiom. 

Did your Central Texas mother by any chance have Panhandle ancestors? If so, that might explain how she came by this unusual figure of speech and passed it on to you, Ms. Dare. If not, well, as a considerably more familiar saying that probably didn’t originate in Texas would have it, “c’est la vie.”  

Have a question for the Texanist? He’s always available . Be sure to tell him where you’re from. 

This article originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Texas Monthly. Subscribe today.