Growing up in Canada, I heard this dialogue a hundred times:\
Dude: "What time is it?"
Guy pantomimes watch-checking, but his wrist is bare
Guy: "It's a freckle past a hair."
Wiktionary even has a scant entry, except with the nouns flipped:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a_hair_past_a_freckle
I've even noticed this joke fading; perhaps it is because of smartphones.
Is there a 'ground zero' for this phrase?
Best Answer
There are different variants of the phrase but it boils down to the same joke.
The same source shows that it is pretty recent:
Apparently, the phrase was used in another sense, that of being 'microscopically' accurate when shooting:
There's a lot more to read about it in this article, you can find out plenty of interesting facts about other variants of the phrase if you wish.
You can definitely play with the phrase as this hilarious post says: