Sayings from the Old Country
 

These are some of the manners epithets I heard time and time again as a child in England. I seriously suspect they did not travel well:

Want will be your master -when a kids says "I want...."

She's the cat's mother (rude to refer to a female person as "she", should use her name, but "he" is ok)


feel free to add peculiar sayings you learned in your childhood that really don't work/make sense in your current life.....

My dad would say, "Who's she, the cat's mother?"

My buddy says, "How does it feel to want?"

so some of the old country made it across the Atlantic! That's comforting. They look at me like I just birthed a three-headed communist when these slip out here....

The cat's mother one is used commonly in Oz too.

Sibling used to hold his cutlery standing on its end so that the sharp bits pointed at the ceiling. My folks used to tell him that there was a little man in the roof that would fall and impale himself.

It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Comparisons are odious.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph...

Never heard of the "cat's mother" funny

You don't know shit from shinola!

finer than frog hair

Went for a Burton.

(fell/tumbled)

"Where there muck, there's brass." is what Mom would say to any of us kids who complained about doing a shitty job (like cleaning out the cat box). Sort of along the same lines as when my husbands grandfather would say "Smells like money" whenever they would drive past a pig farm.

My mom's mum (from Rearsby, Leicestershire if that is, in fact, a real place) used to write in her diary "Fell off my bike" as a euphemism for getting drunk.

Did she at least wear a helmet?

"A kiss without a mustache is like a soup without salt" - what my Mom said to me when she met one of my boyfriends who had a mustache.

'Where there's muck there's brass' is probably one of the most famously quintessential Yorkshire phrases. There was a brilliant tv programme years ago called 'Brass', centred on a wealthy Yorkshire family.

'Shaping wooden' is one I have inherited from Ma. If you're faffing about being ineffective: "Come on, you're shapin wooden lass."

Another is: 'stand locking up'. As in "If I don't sort out that bill before it goes red, I stand lockin' up" or, "If I don't get an early night tonight, I stand lockin' up."


I think my favourite though, was the phrase that both mum and dad used to signal bedtime: Come on then, they'd say, 'up tha dances'. For years my infant brain heard that as 'up the dances' and thought that somehow 'the dances' meant the stairs to bed.

Or "beef" (no jokes here, please) "without mustard", as my mum said.

"You can give her the bullets, if you can give her the gun."

From my dad: "Just be thankful we don't get all the government we pay for."

I refer you to this post! Yes, Rearsby is not only a real place, but I have been there. And my adored and emigrated Ngiri friend Emma (is that searchable enough?) hs family connections there.

My Mum's specials:
Acting the goat (silliness or bad manners leading to injury)
Polly Long Frock (used especially in the 80s when skirts were ankle length and she disapproved)
Pratty Anna (foolishness, clumsiness)

And from the Irish side
Gommie (equivilant to spastic or downs' syndrome - sorry)
Eejit - idiot, but could be said with more distain
Jeanie Mac - no idea who she was, but instead of blaspheming - draws out nicely with long slow syllables

In reply to "who you looking at?"

"A cat can look at a Queen".

My mum used to say that.

Good lord you have a memory!

[Subject] has to pull their socks up (on shoddy performance).

Do you guys use the phrase 'on tenterhooks' to denote anticipation?

Absolutely. Used it just last week.

I used the phrase "jolly hockey sticks" this morning in conversation with a Canadian who had never heard of it. Would it be a strange expression for someone in the UK who hasn't read boarding school stories?

No, that's a well-known phrase used to describe a particular kind of upper-class girl or woman. Usually slightly derogatory, it suggests someone with that particular kind of well-bred, jolly enthusiasm and zeal, but not that bright.

Dana - you mean tenderhooks, right? Is it tenterhooks??

Tenterhooks. :p

From wiki:


There's a collection of streets and roads near me which is called 'Tenter Fields'. Probably built where the old wool drying fields once were.

well, I'll be dipped in shit. I learned something new today!

thanks, prof. DanaC.

I always wondered about tenderhooks - I mean, tender? Right? makes no sense...

tenderfoot...

Oh wait - wrong thread

Ive not seen more than 5 minutes of it.

My pal says "I'll be jiggered up a hemlock" for, I'll be damned.

Sure and the next thing ye'll be wantin' is haggis.

Love this phrase-used to use it a lot about 15 years ago, but these days I don't incorporate it into my conversation nearly enough. Time to change that.

How do you use this phrase in a sentence?

When the Labour party was holding elections for their deputy leader a couple of years ago, one of the potential candidates was Harriet Harman. I was kind of leaning towards her purely on the grounds that she was a woman and politically inoffensive. J and I talked about the election, and he said that someone he knew had met Harman a few times and said 'she's a bit jolly hockey sticks for my liking'.

That's got a great lilt to it, sounds similar to "Goody Two Shoes" but different meaning. I'm trying to think if we have an analogous phrase for JHS.

Just came across this, from here:

Cool! Thanks for that 3ft. I had no idea it originated on a radio show.

I was kind of thinking "Stepford wives?" Superficially perfect, but completely insipid underneath. Or like going to college to "get her MRS degree," (translation for Brits: find a husband who will support her.) And after she's married she's a "trophy wife."

Not really. I don't like to respond negatively without an alternative, but it's really not the same thing. Having read Stepford Wives I mean ( and we have them over here too).

Sports at school here DO NOT lead to college and money, so it's more of an outdoorsy type for its own sake. And without the independence/ anti-Goverment bias implied in America. Part of the mainstream huntin', fishin', shootin' community, but quite likely from landed gentry stock. Therefore right wing, but only in as far as maintaining the status quo. It doesn't mean airhead, but it does mean of a non-acaedemical mien. Hearty, bluff, a hiker, a camper.

It's a derogatory term, but not a really harsh one. Like calling someone a Slonae Ranger or a Hooray Henry. Look them up - I'm all explained out :)

probably "Preppie" is as close as we come.

YMMV but I think "fun loving, not a care in the world, privileged, entitled, often well educated but not smart"

Yes. That's close enough.

Thanks for the tenter hooks. We always used tender hooks but didn't know it was an American corruption. :thumb:

Like titbit/ tidbit... you corruptors ;)

:lol:

Titbit?

Must admit I didn't know that one, but I did know tenterhooks.

We think everything is tender...like feet. (No offense, 3)

Tendril is the night

guffaw.

I remember the first time I saw 'tidbit' in an American book. Struck me as slightly bizarre. I think it's taken over a little from Titbit here now.

As has 'ladybug' instead of 'ladybird'.

My niece always calls them ladybugs. I said to her that is what Americans call them but that the British word for them is ladybird, but she says she prefers ladybug.

In for a penny, in for a pound
Penny wise, pound foolish

Both of those are commonly used over here.

You're just joshing...

I thought this was English, but I'm watching Scrubs and it's in one of the episodes.

Joshing is English, but it may have travelled.

'Joshing' is generally seen as a slightly upper-class, public school, and old fashioned way of saying 'joking'. It's recently come back into vogue (last 20 years or so) in a more general sense.



[eta] according to google, it originates in the US in the 19th century. So I guess it travelled here.

I thought "snatch you bald-headed" was North of England.
But before I posted it I checked online.
It may have originated here, but it's been in currency on both sides of the Atlantic at least.

what about "your bald-headed snatch"? Almost unheard of in the 1970s...

Both of those are new for me.

Once again on Scrubs, heard dilly dally as in 'mustn't dilly dally" which I'm pretty sure is English. Reckon the Scrubs writing team must have done a lot of borrowing of phrases from across the Atlantic.

An old music hall number from the early 20th century. I doubt there's a single Brit alive who wouldn't recognise that tune :p


From wiki: