Idioms and sayings

Gally, we once took our kids out for a Sunday afternoon walk, culminating in a stop off at a pub down a country lane that allowed children, very rare then. When the kids asked where we were going, hubby said "There and back to see how far it is". Apparently, the next day, in school, my son`s class were asked where they`d been at the weekend, our David said "There and back to see how far it is"!!

'ow do' was a common greeting when I lived in Lancashire in the 1950's. I used to tell my own children to stop mithering.
When I asked my dad what 'Sez you' meant, he said it was what Joseph said to Mary. I was about eight and had no idea what he meant but my Catholic mother was outraged.
We had a teacher who used to say 'Woe betide you if you....' I was an adult before I understood that one.
We were considered quite posh in our street (in the country of the blind....) and when a girl's ball went down our cellar steps, she asked if she could get
her ball out of our 'cellow'.

janeainsworth Oh the beauties of Australian English. Some favourites

"Budgie smugglers" for a man's over-tiny Speedo swimmers.

Daks = trousers
so tracky-daks = tracksuit bottoms

G'day mate: nobody can say it like an Aussie. Said to everyone, male or female, old or young. Heartfelt and expecting nothing back. What a place!

My dad used to greet his friends with, "Now then, Wacker". Absolutely no idea what a 'wacker' is lol

When the sky is very overcast ........ as black as Newgate's knocker.

Of a hopeless gadget.........as much use as a concrete parachute.

'She's blotted her copybook ...'

Very overcast sky! "Its looking a bit black over Bill's mothers."

'There's nowt as queer as folk' really not sure where I first heard this, but use it a lot.

To go upstairs is to 'go up the dancers'

@Notsogran - My grandmother would say 'as black as Newgate's knocker' of anything really dark, not just the sky.

@Isthisallthereis My Liverpudlian father would say "Well, I'll go hopping away..." - a mental picture which baffled but delighted me.

There's an old show-business expression 'So I pissed on me props and said farewell to the profession' - the 'chips' one I only heard once - from the sweet lips of the lovely Madeline Smith, which somehow gave it extra zing!

When someone failed to share, say, a box of chocolates. "That's all right, I've got a big box upstairs" and when something was missing, "It's up in Annie's room".

I'll say it again, I'm loving these!

So am I !

Do you remember all the fuss and bother when Daley Thompson, after he'd won Gold in the Decathlon in 1984 in Los Angeles, a fantastic performance:

Thompson went on to explain his euphoria to US viewers, saying: I haven't been this happy since my granny caught her tit in a mangle. The Guardian

Fab!

I guess the remark was just so very unexpected especially at that most corporate and unrelaxed of Olympic Games. London 2012 had a much better atmosphere imo.

If I ever asked my Dad why he was going out he would answer "To see a man about a dog"

"Up the wooden hill" Time for bed.

On returning from a night out with my girlfriends my Nan would always ask "Did you get the glad eye then"

Smoluski Love it!

My grandma added to the 'up the wooden hill'. She said, "Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire."

She also used to tell us that the bogey man lived in the cockloft.

"In and out like a donkey's dick" - and "like a dog with two dicks" - both phrases a friend of mine uses.

I've heard of a dog with two tails. The other version seems very odd given the nature and duration of canine mating.

Up and down like whore's drawers.

In and out like a fiddler's elbow.

Absent I'd forgotten that one. Dad always used to say 'it's up in Annie's room behind the clock'
Number
I wonder what sayings our children will be attributing to us in 30 years time?

I love these too but my very ladylike MIL had the best expression of real, exasperated annoyance of any :
'Damn, damn, double damn, three hells and a bugger'

isthis - I was brought up on a large council house estate in South Manchester (Mancunians can hazard a guess at which one!) where children 'mithered' their 'mam/mum' all the time if they were 'mard', and had their 'bladder behind their eyes' if they 'skriked' all the time. If there was no food in the cupboard they had 'nowt/bugger all' in for tea and if women were 'all fur coat and no knickers' it was because they were 'no better than they should be'. We 'played out' and then crept 'round the back' through the 'ginnel' when we got back to 'our 'ouse' - and a 'walloping' if we were late. Happy times.......NOT!

...and got a 'walloping'.

If there was something slightly wrong with something, my mum would say "A blind man on a galloping horse won't notice!"

Ella I remember hearing that often ,sometimes just 'a man on a galloping horse'
My gran used to say 'as black as an ouzel'. Before pit-top baths were provided miners came home with coal dust still on their faces.it was much later I came across the word ouzel in a Shakespeare play -found it means 'blackbird'.