[Idiom] My family tree is full of nuts. What's the meaning?

[Nadi Basinova]

Hello everyone!
I've come across the phrase: My family tree is full of nuts.
As I get it, it basically means "my family is big" or "has many family members".
I am wondering does this saying have a second meaning - the funny one? I am referring to the word "nuts".

 

[bhaisahab]

It means that the persons ancestors were all mad in some way.

 

[GoesStation]

The phrase has only one meaning: many of my ancestors were eccentric.

 

[Barb_D]

It's just a little joke.
It could be your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, your own kids - just lots of "craziness" but not necessarily in a pathological/clinical sense.

 

[MikeNewYork]

The statement uses tree and nuts in two ways: first as if it were a real tree producing real nuts, second as if his relatives were crazy.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

A family tree is a genealogical diagram. A nut is both a tree seed and a crazy person.

So the expression means that most of your relatives are crazy.

 

[GoesStation]

A family tree is a genealogical diagram. A nut is both a tree seed and a crazy person.

So the expression means that most of your relatives are crazy.

I think most people who use the expression mean eccentric rather than crazy.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I think most people who use the expression mean eccentric rather than crazy.

See:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuts
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/nuts
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nuts

So I'm not nuts.

 

[GoesStation]

See:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuts
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/nuts
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nuts

So I'm not nuts.

It can mean crazy. I think all three of those dictionaries have omitted a common use of the term. When I hear someone say their family tree is full of nuts, I do not imagine that a lot of their ancestors and relatives are or were insane. I hear it as a light-hearted way of saying they were charmingly eccentric.

 

[Barb_D]

I rarely hear someone say something like "My sister is crazy" to mean their sister suffers from a recognized form of mental illness. It's rarely used in the pathological sense. What you call "charmingly eccentric" my daughter probably calls "batsh*t crazy." Both of you would perhaps laugh when you said it.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Right. It's tongue-in-cheek. My family is nuts. My family is crazy. (It really is! I could tell you stories. . . .)