Has anybody else heard this saying?.

Good advice - and hard to refute!!

Welcome Joy.

Things were always 'black as paint' or 'black as my father's hat' in our house.

'You're a lang time died' (pronounced deed) and 'there's nae pockets in a shroud'
are still heard often around here.

My mother, giving advice to my brothers on how to avoid trouble when they were going into town for the evening. "it's better to be a coward for a few minutes than be dead for the rest of your life"

My mum always used to say that something was 'As black as Newgate's knocker' (she came from London)

JoyBlogs Welcome Joy I am from the Wirral and I have a variation of your saying 'Look at him/her standing around like one of Lewis's waiting for Woolworths to open' I didn't know the origin of the saying.

I think Woolworths opened their very first store in Liverpool and possibly Lewis's was established before that, so that may explain my variation.

Welcome joy I hope you 'en' joy the site!

Hello Grans! I am new to gransnet and this is my first post. Whenever my Mum (now aged 90) sees somebody hanging around idly doing nothing, she says 'Just look at him/her standing around like one of Lewis's'. When asked the origin of this saying she said it was used years ago when she lived in her home city, Liverpool. Lewis's was a department store and the reference is to a 'floorwalker' who used to stand around in different departments keeping an eye on staff and helping customers. ('The role of Captain Peacock, I believe, for those who can remember the TV prog 'Are you being served'?)

I imagine in the same spirit as Robert Burns' "a man's a man for a' that", in Scotland we have a saying that "we're a' Jock Tamson's bairns."

As wellcome as a pork pie at a Jewish wedding, is one I've heard recently, along with
'Is the pope catholic?'

My father used to say ' as popular as a whore at a christening'........It usually raises a smile!!!!! He was from Fulham by the way .

Hmm - have to agree with you there, gracesmum!

Hilarious?

Hi again...another old saying from an old mate of mine when it was `drizzling` with rain, he used to say `it`s only the gnats p.....g`I think the Brummies are the best at hillarious sayings. Anyone agree?

How about this one then? My old Gran used to say to us when we lived in Oldbury roundabout christmas time that we should`wish in one hand and s..t in the other and see which one gets full first` never forgot it. By -the -way the saying was used in `Bad Santa by Billy Bob Thornton as the bad Santa..hillarious....another one from a jewellery centre mat of mine when I was learning to be a jeweller and he said `there`s a lot dying now that hadn`t used to` another hillarious saying..you`ve started something now.

Thank you Maggiemaybe

Got it!

nightowl

Yes, we used this one a lot in the North East, again as "a long time dead". Mind you, we seemed to have more sayings than most up there, some of them unrepeatable without the odd asterisk. Hard to imagine now that when I used to ask what was for tea, the usual answer from my busy mother was "s..t and sugar"!

nightowl - your post about your mum really touched me.

And I would add some flowers and bold your name if only I could work out how to do it....the hints below don't seem to work for me.

My aunt used the same saying in Manchester so I think it must be quite common.

My DH had been using the "Jesus" saying ever since I met him over 40 years ago but had never heard anyone else use it until we were watching an American programme and someone said it - at the time we had an actor friend who was working in Hollywood and we wondered whether he had used the phrase and a scriptwriter picked it up!

Two of my DHs sayings were "madder than a wet hen" to describe an angry person,

to tease someone who was being mean he would say "there are no pockets in a shroud".

If he was trying to descibe a remote place to anyone it was "about three miles past where Jesus lost his sandals"

I certainly grew up with this saying, plus another favourite of my Grandmother's was 'Full of the ills that nobody dies of'. A response to anybody over-egging a minor ailment.

One I heard recently: "It was as much use as an inflatable dart board"!!

Same as Phoenix

Yes nina I've heard that one.

Galen I've heard that one as 'as rare as hen's teeth'

I've heard all the above but the version of Nina's that I heard was not quite so polite!

Like looking for hen's teeth.