«شَخْشَخْ يَابُو النُّومْ عَلَى اللِّي جَدِّ الْيُومْ»

The speaker calls on the "father of sleep", a folk name for the poppy, whose dry seed head rattles when shaken, to sound off like an alarm. The rattle is a dry clicking noise, not a call to wake a sleeper; it signals that people should look up, because something unheard of has just appeared.

In practice the saying greets a fresh turn of events that strikes people as strange or objectionable. Its tone is disapproving astonishment, not cheerful news: it marks the novelty with raised eyebrows, announcing the matter loudly precisely because it seems so out of place or so hard to accept.

Say it when an odd or improper development has just surfaced and you want to draw everyone's attention to it, with a note of mock alarm or reproach at how unexpected and unwelcome it is.