What an odd phrase or saying!

I've never heard it..

Please tell me it's not only me! I would hate to think that I was using a phrase that no one else had ever heard!

I use the phrase often, but yes ,have no idea where it came from.

Definitely know the phrase and have always thought it referred to fending off animals - if there were too many of them then shaking a stick would not work.

Ooh err! Just Googled it . Mostly unknown origin but - www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=More%20than%20i%20can%20shake%20a%20stick%20at

shysal - I learned the phrase from my Mum - I doubt she would have used it by that modern definition!!

There are many expressions in English that make me chortle:

When someone says "Bear with me" I want to ask "Are you having a baby?"

Or to "I won't say no" I want to reply "You just did".

Or "May I have a word?" I want to stop them after one. Because it's always lots!

There's more but cant think of them right now ...

Surely bear as in bear a burden

I know Galen but it is the way it is said, and there's hardly a burden involved usually!

I've always thought it's origin was as Luckygirl described. I've certainly never thought of it having a 'saucy' meaning

I'm with lucky but haven't looked at the modern meaning I used to here it when I was young and it seems to have reappeared lately.

Just remembered, DS1 bought me a book about the origin of sayings. I try to find it.

Oh I've definitely heard and used the 'stick' saying. My mother was full of odd sayings but they go out of your head when you try to think of them. She was fond of wanting 'to give me something to cry for' and to 'make me laugh on the other side of my face'. If I pulled a face undoubtedly 'the wind will change and you'll stay like that'.

If my father was asked by us where he was going it was always ' up Aldgate Pump to get a bike out' and my Aunties reply would be ' up arse****s corner to hear the band play' she was rather earthy but lovely.

Lots more!!!!

We took the kids for a walk one sunny Sunday afternoon, to look at a pub we`d been told about that accepted children. When asked where we were going, we told them "there and back to see how far it is." When they went to school the following day, eldest son, aged 5, told the teacher they`d been out for a walk, when she asked where, he said "there and back to see how far it is!"

We got that one when I was little. Why was no-one ever prepared to say where they were really going? it was always"To see a man about a dog." "Back of Bill's mother's to see Mary" or "There and back etc"

I found the book but the saying wasn't there!!

We often couldn't go anywhere because my Nan had a bone in her leg!!

Oh heavens, I remember Sunday afternoon walks with my Grandparents, being told we were going to walk as far as the Green Dragon and then walk back (I was terrified, didn't know it was a pub!)

Even worse was the walk to the Wyche Cutting, which is a place in my beloved Malvern Hills, but I thought it was the "witch cutting" imagining some old crone with large scissors!

We seem to have wandered from "shaking a stick at"

It is to do with the old practice of counting sheep with a stick (apparently). Presumably, if you had a very large flock, you often had more than you could "shake a stick at"! (Or you fell asleep before you had finished shaking your stick at them!). It is an expression I am apt to use on more than a few occasions but I have never wondered, until now, where it came from!

I like to think of a bear standing next to the person saying bear with me!

Just read this thread and read the definition in Urban Dictionary-well, better be careful where we say that then! Lol!

I've just thought of another odd saying: "She waited on him hand and foot". I've never heard it said starting with "He ..."

When it looked like rain and the sky was heavy with clouds , my friend would say " It's dark over Aunt Maud 's". Who was she ?

Our family saying was 'It's black over Bill's mother's' Never knew who she was either!

Suzy Dent from Countdown has published a number of books on the origins of words and sayings.
Our family saying is ' Steady the buffs'. ?