The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #11381   Message #2155096
Posted By: GUEST, Mikefule
22-Sep-07 - 04:16 PM
Thread Name: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
Turnpike, old word for a toll road. Thus gypsies are sometimes called "pikeys" as in "turnpike sailors". (Travelling as they do from place to place, under canvas, and wearing gold earrings.)

The eye of a needle. At school I was taught it was the smallest gate out of a city. Thus the camel would have to get rid of its baggage to get through, just as the rich man would have to divest himself of his worldly goods to gain access to heaven. The explanation seemedto me to be a bit "retrospectively applied" even when I was about 7 years old!

"I should coco..." = I should think so, but said sarcastically and knowingly to mean, "I shouldn't think so, would you?"

"Not on your Nellie" = "Not bloody likely". No I certainly won't.

Sweet Fanny Adams. I once heard that this expression used to mean corned beef, as a grim reference to the fate of Fanny Adams who was murdered and butchered. "Sweet Fanny Adams" by extension meant "not much" or "the bare minimum". By convergent development of slang, when "Sweet F*** All" became a common expression, and then "Sweet FA", the older expression "Sweet Fanny Adams" came to mean "nothing at all". Possibly!