Stronger Than an Acre of Onions

My father grew up in Oklahoma as the son of a newspaper reporter. He has a vast fund of very vivid phrases he likes to use. Of course, I learned them from hearing them often when I was growing up. Some of them don’t make much sense. “Flatter than a flitter,” for example. I have no idea what a flitter is, but apparently they are very flat. “Slicker than greased owl shit” produces a slightly different sort of confusion.

One that makes more sense on its face, but is still a nicely vivid image, is “stronger than an acre of onions,” usually referring to a person’s personality…