Saying a saying

Thanks all of you,very funny and my last one is.... horses sweat,men perspire and ladies only glow.

Are you having a laugh? (meaning) Are you taking the piss?

Knickers in a twist.

nuttier than a squirrel's poo.

Cat got your tongue.

Frog in your throat

Blimey

Barking mad

Donkey's years [meaning a long time] My Scottish husband at the time refused to believe this was a saying.

Flogging a dead horse. I wouldn't say that now, would change as the 2 birds have done.

Gordon Bennett if you are shocked or surprised.

He's going all around the Wrekin
(A long-winded explanation or a long journey)

His/her lift doesn't go to the top floor.....
( stupidity)

Cough it up if might be a gold watch.
(When someone is coughing )

AussieGran59

welbeck

one which i rather like, never heard when young:
<well i'll go to the foot of my stairs.>
i think it's a northern saying ?
i find it quite charming. must try to use it.

Fascinated by this one but I don’t understand it, welbeck. Please enlighten me?

I've heard it too
Not sure what it means exactly but anyone who knows it knows what it means iyswim 😂
It means you're astonished about something.

On a stairs theme - I was sent up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire.

Were you born in a barn?
You look as if you've been pulled through a hedge backwards
You're like a bull in a china shop

Obviously exasperated my mother no end!

i knew someone whose parents objected to the saying,
to kill two birds with one stone,
as they said it encouraged violence.
instead, they would say,
to feed two birds with one hand.
i think it was something to do with
the peace pledge union.

If I was untidy - usually just home from school - “oh, you’re like Lipton’s orphan” or “you look like you’ve nobody belonging to you”. But if I was tidy “you’re like pins in paper”. My mother was quite a tidy person, did you guess?!

Granmarderby10

She (could be he though) looks like she’s been chewing on broken glass and sucking on 🍋

My brother-in-law used to say an aunt looked like she'd been sucking on a wasp 🐝

….Or like a bulldog chewin a thistle!

An Irish girl I worked with described her cup of tea as " strong enough to trot a mouse over".

Brahumbug

My gran would say of a blunt knife "you could ride bare arsed to London on that"

This has to be my favourite Brahumbug. She must have been a great character!

LOL I got it as a postcard years ago I am Pisces, so it is perfect , between you and me and the lamp-post.

She (could be he though) looks like she’s been chewing on broken glass and sucking on 🍋

Fleurpepper I may get that dead fish one for my new fridge😁
And Bridgeit I will rectify this mysogany forthwith and from now on will say “he”
Still no idea what it actually meant but I like it🙃

Is there a difference between a 'saying', an 'expression', an idiom' etc?

Call it what you like, these threads are always fun - the old phrases are so much more expressive than many of the media-created ones, and tell us something about life in the past.

Another one I like is 'don't stand there like a stookie' (a haystack) as said to someone not helping out.

A lot of the sayings “expressions” here are just banter really the list is endless.
If you had brains you would be dangerous
The lights are on but there’s know one at home
What a load of verbal diarrhoea (usually said when someone disagrees with something they have just heard)

My grandmother would say ‘he couldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel’ if someone was bandy legged.
‘They don’t spoil two houses’ if both people in a couple were annoying.
‘Enough face for two sets of teeth’ meant someone brazen, and (I told him to) ‘go and run up a shutter’ ie get lost (or something ruder).

My gran would say of a blunt knife "you could ride bare arsed to London on that"

BlueBelle

We use to say well I ll go to the foot of our stairs. *Wellbeck
My grandads was * well its better than a slap across the belly with a wet fish* if something was not what you actually wanted
Going to see * a man about a dog* when he went for a drink
When a storm was coming Nan would say *it’s Looking dark over Wills wife’s mothers*

Or a poke in the eye with a sharp stick 😂

pandapatch

If you asked my nan what's for dinner? she would always reply, "3 jumps up cupboard door and a bite off the knob" never jeard it before or since!

I used that one when my children were small, heard it when I first started work 😳

“A jump at the door and a lick of the knob”

“Got more lip than Tommy Liptons got tea bags”

“Takes a man not a shirt button”

Red hat, no knickers

After the Lord Mayor’s Show comes the shit cart

The blind leading the blind

All teeth and temptation