RWMG, in wishing me a happy birthday, asked:
Max asked about this extra to grow on business. It's not a tradition I've thought about in a long time, but there's a tradition in the US in which you spank a child on his/her birthday (but I've also seen it with adults--usually the term sexual harassment comes to mind). The birthday girl/boy gets a light spank on the bottom for each of their years (counted loudly), then just when you think the ordeal is over the spanker will give you an extra "one to grow on" (i.e. a spank to help you grow). A more pleasant variation on this is to give the person an extra candle on their cake.
The phrase has taken on a life of its own, used in situations where something extra is given, especially something that's supposed to help/force you to grow (up) a bit. For example, here's a bit from Time magazine in 1956, about a reporter who has taken recently merged labo(u)r unions to task for various 'sins':
Any differences between UK and US birthdays you want to let us in on?Funnily enough, a difference came up in Max's list of Americanisms from Anne Tyler's Back when we were grownups:
Biddy was using the butane torch to light the candles on the cake --an actual one hundred candles, as Rebecca had insisted, plus an extra to grow on.
Max asked about this extra to grow on business. It's not a tradition I've thought about in a long time, but there's a tradition in the US in which you spank a child on his/her birthday (but I've also seen it with adults--usually the term sexual harassment comes to mind). The birthday girl/boy gets a light spank on the bottom for each of their years (counted loudly), then just when you think the ordeal is over the spanker will give you an extra "one to grow on" (i.e. a spank to help you grow). A more pleasant variation on this is to give the person an extra candle on their cake.
The phrase has taken on a life of its own, used in situations where something extra is given, especially something that's supposed to help/force you to grow (up) a bit. For example, here's a bit from Time magazine in 1956, about a reporter who has taken recently merged labo(u)r unions to task for various 'sins':
On the first birthday of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. merger, one of the U.S.'s top labor reporters, New York Timesman A. H. Raskin, gave the "brawling infant" one to grow on in the Times's Sunday Magazine.I asked Max if there's anything similar in the UK, and he replied:
The nearest thing to your birthday spanking is "the bumps" which schoolboys subject one another to on birthdays. One holds the victim's arms and another the legs, and they "bump" the victim on the ground (not hard) for the appropriate number of times, plus maybe "one for luck". You "give someone the bumps".I'm sure you'll let us know if these traditions are still practi{c/s}ed among children today and what variations on these themes are out there...