BS: Did your mum say this to you.....

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 05:14 PM

When I took up trumpet my mother said, "You keep playing with it and it'll fall off!"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 03:30 PM

When I got my first guitar, she said: "If you pick it, it'll never heal!"

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 11:31 AM

"Yes, you expect to turn up here every few years now, dressed like Mrs. Astor's plush horse and high and mighty as a duchess..."
—"Family Reunion" by Janet Curren Owen, Arthur W Rushmore, 1933. - 313 pages

"As Teenie says, 'I'm not as green as I'm cabbage looking.'"
—"The Congresswoman" by Isabel Gordon Curtis, 1914.

"It's no use to sell your cabbages twice, says I, and I never repeats."
—"The Overland Monthly" by Bret Harte, 1870.

"I talked to everyone, said the same thing to everyone for two mortal hours, and a young woman with a voice that sounded like tearing oil-cloth sang two songs and another recited two stories. I nearly died."
—"F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, Early Years" by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Elliott Roosevelt, 2005, [letter dated 1900].

"'Nothing of the sort,' rejoined the lady; 'and I'll trouble you to get off.' 'Can't—I've got a bone in my leg,' rejoined the captain."
—"New Monthly Magazine and Humorist", 1851.

"Every one to his own taste, as the old woman said when she kissed the cow."
—"Dreams and Reveries of a Quiet Man" by Theodore Sedgwick Fay, Joseph Dewey Fay, 1832.

"Go to, my poor boy; go to, and be not foolish; do as you're told and no trifling."
—"The Partisan: A Tale of the Revolution" by William Gilmore Simms, 1835.

"Though not finding it that imaginary El Dorado where honey flows in streams and money grows on trees, many of the most restless and roving have come here."
—"Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review", 1848.

"You are like all the rest of the world, I believe you think that money grows on trees, and that I have only to put out my hand and gather it..."
—"Ruling the Roast", by Emma Carolina Wood, 1874.

"Why! here is a parcel of words full as analogous as chalk and cheese, or a cat and a cartwheel!"
—"Works", by François Rabelais [translated by Du Chat, Motteux, Ozell, et al.], 1807.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 14 Nov 08 - 01:26 AM

Sure, Rapaire. Also "leave that %#@&! blasting cap alone!" and "don't stick your butter knife in the electric outlet!"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 06:04 PM

My mother used to say, "Boys, boys, boys! How many times do I have to tell you not to shoot guns in the house?"

I'll bet yours did too.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Nov 08 - 03:20 PM

"Every day he goes the round of his traps, and his invariable answer when asked what he has caught is, 'What the little boy shot at!' The little boy in question is legendary and proverbial, and is supposed to have shot at 'nothin'."
—"The New England Magazine" 1892.

"You'd lose your head if it wasn't fastened on!"
—"The Young Pioneers of the North-west" by Charles H. Pearson, 1870.

"'There'll be laughing on the other side of their mouths, I guess, before the week is out' cried the artist in a spiteful tone."
—"Putnam's Magazine" 1854.

"'Child,' said she, very coldly, 'your voice is like a bee in a bottle.'"
—"Maids of Honour: A Tale of the Court of George I" by Robert Folkestone Williams, 1845.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 12 Nov 08 - 07:30 PM

OK - one more. If my sister and I came down stairs dressed similarly, or a friend came over and we were wearing much the same thing my mum would say that we looked like 'Mrs. Binn's twins' (pronounced Mrs. Binnes twinses.....')--any one heard that.

Just got back from the UK yesterday and heard again the old favorite -- they are as different as chalk and cheese........... which I think is a pretty great description....

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 01:31 PM

"God needed him more than we do!"
---after my father died when I was 5 years old and simply devastated.

"Doing that will make ghair grow on your palms!"
-------Yeah, you got it!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: gecko
Date: 08 Nov 08 - 04:33 AM

To a grizzling (whining) child - "put that face straight or else!"

Mother finding something we were supposed to be looking for "what's this, a bloody carrot!"

"do as you're told"

"you're as daft as a brush"

Fidgeting child "you're like a fart in a colandar"

Getting home after strict 10pm deadline "what time do you call this!"

Peering up the street through the curtains "get away from the windows - what do you think this is, Aggie Weston's caff?"

Using too much milk "do you think we've got a cow up the garden?"

"do you think money grows on trees?"


I'm sure Mom and Dad loved us but money was pretty tight in the 1950's + 60's and the 'next meal' often involved a stale loaf with jam.

YIU
gecko

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 08:35 PM

"'You've reversed the old adage,' said he, 'about the odd things you see when you haven't got a gun.'"
—"Hunters Three: Sport and Adventure in South Africa" by Thomas Wallace Knox, William M. Cary, 1895.

"The week of years. This was a period of seven years, during the last of which, the land remained untilled, and the people enjoyed a sabbath or season of rest."
—"Jahn's Biblical Archaeology" by Johann Jahn, Thomas Cogswell Upham, 1827.

"Don't I look like the wreck of the Hesperus? Honest to goodness, I feel like nine dollars' worth of dog meat hanging out of a hospital window."
—"The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great 'White Way'" by Kenneth McGaffey, 1908.

"...but usually, as the old saying is, 'There is more than one way to skin a cat'—more than one method of producing the same result."
—"Report of the Secretary" by Michigan State Board of Agriculture, 1880.

"'This will hurt me far more than it will hurt you, my lad,' said Armstrong senior; and Paul, by a swift, sidelong movement of the mind, decided that he had been born a liar because his father was one before him."
—"Despair's Last Journey" by David Christie Murray, 1901.

"Margaret, turn off the waterworks, unless you wish to drive me mad."
—"A Professional Rider" by Mary E. Kennard, 1903.

"On coming in again, a gust of cold air, like a tangible presence and which cut like a knife, came in with him, and awoke Jamie. 'The deuce'—only he put it more forcibly—'take you, Yorke; were you born in a barn?' snapped the Amiable One."
—"Sinners Twain: A Romance of the Great Lone Land" by John Mackie, 1895.

"The old expression, 'trying to heat the whole outdoors,' has been so impressed upon their minds that, by trying to keep all the heat in, they keep all the fresh air out."
—"Your Baby: A Guide for Young Mothers" by Edith Belle Lowry, 1915.

"Good-night! come again when you can't stay so long."
—"A New and Practical System of the Culture of Voice and Action" by Joseph Edwin Frobisher, 1867.

"Cha'n ann de shiolachadh a' phoca-shalainn thu.
You are not of the seed of the salt-pock.
Sometimes said to boys sent out in the rain, = You won't melt."
—"A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases" by Donald Macintosh, Alexander Nicolson, 1882.

"It's weel your faults are no written on your forehead."
—"Scottish Proverbs" by Andrew Henderson, William Motherwell, 1832.

"Bankers did not give 'owt for nowt,' as Matt put it to himself."
—"Sons of Belial" by William Westall, 1895.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 07 Nov 08 - 07:58 AM

Phrases remembered from my grandmother (born 1892 in Somerset, England)
"I don't chew my cabbages twice."
"I've got a bone in my leg" (Excuse for not playing with me).
"There's no accounting for taste, as the old woman said as she kissed the cow".

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Rowan
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 04:56 PM

They're great, Jim. I'm impressed!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 12:41 PM

"They are three pretty simpletons,—with the niminy-piminy airs of a fashionable boarding school;—there is silliness without simplicity;—and no two qualities can be more opposite."
—"The Diary of an Invalid: Being the Journal of a Tour in Pursuit of Health" by Henry Matthews, 1820.

"The main consolation the sufferer got was the frequent assurance that it was only the ague and nobody ever died from it."
—"Semi-centennial Celebration of Michigan State Agricultural College" by Thomas Charles Blaisdell, 1908.

"Your horse, my lord, was very backward in coming forward, he was behind before, but he's first at last."
—"The New Monthly Magazine, and Literary Journal" by W P Harrison, 1823.

"It was an Irish coroner who, when asked how he accounted for the extraordinary mortality in Limerick, replied, sadly, 'I cannot tell. There are people dying this year that never died before.'"
—"Notes and Queries", 1871.

"We'll put some hair on your chest before we get through with you."
—"The Whip Hand: A Tale of the Pine Country" by Samuel Merwin, 1903.

"WOOD IN THE HOLE. To put the wood in the hole (put t' wood i' t' hoil) is an expression often heard amongst knife-grinders as equivalent to 'shut the door.'"
—"A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield" by Sidney Oldall Addy, 1888.

"...whom one of them declared, She had suspected to be some low creature, from the beginning of their journey; and another affirmed, had not even the looks of a gentlewoman; a third warranted, She was no better than she should be;..."
—"The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and His Friend Mr Abraham Adams" by Henry Fielding, 1779.

"I'll tell you: I'm a poor man—it's a fact—and smell like a wet dog; but I can't be run over!"
—"The Cincinnati Miscellany, Or, Antiquities of the West, and Pioneer History" by Charles Cist, 1846.

"You feel a slight chill as you enter, but merely ascribing it to some one's having stepped on your grave, you shake it off...."
—"Medical Council", 1906.

"His old Salt Lake friend disgustedly replied: 'O, that's something that the cat dragged in.'"
—"Mines and Methods", 1911.

"When I arrived at Doncaster, yesterday morning, myself and Creeping Jesus had only one-and-sevenpence between us."
—"Some interesting Yorkshire scenes" by J. Tomlinson, 1865.

(Is anybody reading these?)

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Chorusgirl
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 12:06 PM

If, as children, we were shouting about, my mum would say "Be quiet, you've got a voice like tearing oilcloth".

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Flash Company
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 10:20 AM

We had it as 'Like tryimg to knit fog'. Another favourite, 'Mum, there's nowhere to sit!' 'Put your thumb in your bum and sit on your elbow!'

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Nov 08 - 09:45 AM

"It's like trying to plait fog!"

Now that is different and elegant. Thanks, Paula.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: paula t
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 06:20 PM

How about "It's like trying to plait fog!" This was said when mum was trying to get us all out of the door at once in the morning and all with our stuff for school too.
I have to admit to using this one myself at times too. It just seems to sum up perfectly the impossible task that seems to drift into chaos just as you think you've got it sorted.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Bizibod
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 03:40 PM

"I am not as green as I'm cabbage-looking", meaning, "If you think I'm going to believe that, then you've another think coming!"

"I don't boil my cabbages twice", meaning, "My views on that subject are already known to you !"

Both of those from my grandma.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 01:10 PM

I did what I should have done originally, but didn't through sheer idleness.

I looked up the name of the TV presenter in question. He's called David Dickinson, and his other big catch-phrase is 'cheap as chips'.

It appears that he has left broadcasting and now works for ITV (more irony, in case anyone should wonder).

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 11:57 AM

"'Hark at you!' she said scornfully. 'Did ever any one hear the like?'"
—"The Story of a Marriage" by Alfred Baldwin, 1895.

"'Bedad, turn round and look at the back of your neck; you haven't washed it since ye 'listed.' The drill instructor's face turned scarlet with rage...."
—"Irish Life and Humour, in Anecdote and Story" by William Harvey, 1908.

"He hadn't the brains God gave to the goose."
—"The Lady Aft" by Richard Matthews Hallet, 1915.

"The man that knocks is a sore head, a block head, a chronic kicker and the south end of a horse going north, and is very apt to be a liar."
—"The Scientific Steel Worker: A Practical Manual for Steel Workers and Blacksmiths" by Ozro A. Westover, 1907.

"Perhaps the zealous Credit-Man who follows this rule may be like the hostess who said to her guest: 'Here's your hat! What's your hurry?'"
—"Hardware Dealers' Magazine", 1910.

"If it had been a snake it would have bitten you."
—"Emmett Bonlore: A Novel" by Opie Percival Read, 1891.

"If you lie down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas, and that's the fruits of travelling with a fool."
—"Jack Hinton, The Guardsman" by Charles Lever, in "The Dublin University Magazine", 1842.

"'Stop that blubbering this instant, or I'll give you something to cry for,' said the teacher sharply."
—"A Scene in Courtship Drawn from Real Life" in "The Poughkeepsie Casket: A Semi-Monthly Literary Journal" by Egbert B. Killey, Benson John Lossing, 1839.

"The next time I am pointing birds and you come blundering in ahead of me, I'll wear you out good and hard."
—"Pete and Some Other Dogs" by Pete, in "Recreation" edited by George O. Shields, 1899.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 07:53 AM

If you left the door open you were asked "Were you born in a barn?".

I noticed after the Townsend-Torresand (spelling?) disaster that this had changed to "Were you born in a ferry?".

A friend of mine was involved with the enquiry into that disaster and came back with a carrier bag labeled "This way up".

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Nov 08 - 12:27 AM

I'm probably the only one here whose mother would say, when I looked messy...

Comb your hair! You look like an ad for the Save the Children Federation!


And if she thought we were getting 'above ourselves,' she'd say.

What do you think you are, Mrs. Astor's plush horse?

That would have been insulting and unkind, but fortunately we had no idea what she was talking about.


One Sunday we heard the Bible verse, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." A few days later somebody offered her seconds at lunchtime and she replied, "Sufficient unto the day is the liver sausage thereof."

Nobody else's mother said things like that. I was so proud of her.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 10:35 PM

I guess I don't know who the TV presenter is....

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 09:27 AM

"...I just looked at him—and he turned [r]ound saying, 'Don't look at me in that tone of voice, Jones,'...."
—"Cleansing Fires" by Newton Sears, 1877.

"A face that would stop a clock, i. e. repellent."
—"A Glossary of Words and Phrases Used in S. E. Worcestershire" by Jesse Salisbury, 1894.

"'Yes ; looks as if he's lost a quid and found a tanner,' said the doctor."
—"Chronicles of Service Life in Malta" by Nina Stuart, 1908.

"You look like a fellow that had lost a bob and found a tanner."
—"Ulysses" by James Joyce, 1937.

"'Now get out from under my feet, you,' said he sternly...."
—"The Long Exile: and Other Stories for Children" by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Nathan Haskell Dole, 1888.

"...till I'm tempted to give you the back of my hand and the sole of my foot..."
—"Ten Years of a Lifetime: A Novel" by Margaret Hosmer, 1866.

"When they give you the glad eye, take it, an' when they don't, just you walk by 'em sort of hummin' under your breath."
—"The House of Bondage" by Reginald Wright Kauffman, 1910.

"The water does not taste nice—it wouldn't be a 'medicine spring' if it did; but it is good for what ails you."
—"My Rambles in the Enchanted Summer Land of the Great Northwest" by the Chicago and North-Western Railway, 1882.

"Good-night, Sleep tight, Don't let the bedbugs bite."
—"What They Say in New England: A Book of Signs, Sayings, and Superstitions" by Clifton Johnson, 1896.

"...for the purpose of purifying themselves; or, as the lieutenant coarsely, but most truly expressed it, 'to blow the stink off' them."
—"The Life and Literary Remains of Charles Reece Pemberton" by Charles Reece Pemberton et al., 1843.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 08:26 AM

No, you're right.

I was being (or trying to be) gently ironic with the 'Bobby Dazzler' reference and my (mild) prejudice against this particular TV presenter doesn't make the expression unacceptable.

The antiques man in question (does anyone know his name?) has a species of northern English accent and I'd assumed that 'Bobby Dazzler' was a northern expression.

Like many other expressions quoted in the posts above, it would appear to be a lot more widespread than that.

Another expression used here in northern England is 'not struck', meaning 'less than enthusiastic'. This is another expression my mother (and everyone else) used all the time.

I was amused to read in the autobiography of film expert Leslie Halliwell that a major film distribution company once held a special preview of some film or other in a northern town and asked the opinion of the locals.

The general concensus was that they were 'not struck' and the unfortunate southern film people were left scratching their heads in puzzlement.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 04 Nov 08 - 08:08 AM

Doing something incompetently:

"Like a cow handling a musket".

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 11:25 PM

I thought Bobby Dazzler was completely acceptable....dont know the origin but I know what it means,,,,,,,,,,s/he is a right bobby dazzler .....quite a compliment....

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 10:36 PM

Well, Dave, your BBC antiques man hasn't yet appeared in Oz (as far as I know) so you can still use "bobby dazzler" here, as I occasionally do.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 10:44 AM

Of course, being pedantic (which is always fun)I realise that I should have written '....who does antiques shows for the BBC' rather than 'antique shows'. It is the objects he talks about which are antique, not the shows.
I wouldn't want anyone to think that I write English like a wooden man made of smoke...

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 09:14 AM

On the frequent occasions when I was demonstrating my incompetence at, say, fastening my shoelaces or putting my pullover on the right way round, my mother would tell me that I 'shaped like a wooden man made of smoke'.

On the infrequent occasions when I was nicely scrubbed, polished and neatly dressed she would refer to me as a 'bobby dazzler'.

The latter epithet cannot now be used in decent company since it was appropriated as a catchphrase by that strange man with an irritating voice and orange face who does antique shows for the BBC.

His name escapes me.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpilaw wrestler
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 08:29 AM

Informal forms of address used when I was dirty or untidy from my father:
"Fly-be-night"
"Blacking brush"

After cleaning up I was "Shined polished and my ears put further back".

He had several words that corresponded to "Thingumy" when he couldn't think of the correct noun, "left handed (or cack-handed) capurtula" was my favoutite.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Nov 08 - 10:59 PM

"A pair of rascally little cross-firing, twinkling eyes, that, as the country people said, looked at least nine ways from Sunday."—from "Lights and Shadows of American Life" by Mary Russell Mitford, 1832.

"'Don't, Master Walter,' cried Dolly, 'you'll make the dog sick; and you'd make a better door than a window, too,' she said, giving him a little push. 'What do you mean? Am I in your light?' he said, laughing."—from "A Mingled Yarn" By Henry S Mackarness and Matilda Anne Mackarness, 1872.

"A very good way to get Mr. —— into trouble, and prevent him ever doing a favour in the future to any other prisoner."—from "My Prison Life" by Jabez Spencer Balfour, 1907.

"Chaloner shudders a little, as if a goose had walked over his grave."—from "Second Thoughts" by Rhoda Broughton, 1880.

"By the way, if one is to judg of a Man by the company he keeps, he may presume to say Mr. F-rg-s-n is of the Red Letter stamp."—from "Memoirs of Secret Service" by Matthew Smith, 1699.

"O haud yer whist, ye silly gowk! Ye've nae richt to complain."—from "Willie Waugh and Other Poems" by James Nicholson, Ellen C Nicholson, 1884.

"The people have scarcely sat down to table than they feel ants in their pants and begin to dance, old and young alike."—from "The Rhythm of the Dynamo" by Paul Claudel, in "The Living Age" 1936.

"She looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth—but she's a sly one, I tell you."—from "Paul Pry" by John Poole, 1825.

"Luttrells of whom I think it was Lord Beaconsfield who said that the men of the race were remarkable for straight hair and curly teeth."—from "Baily's Magazine of Sports and Pastimes", 1881.

"Faith, this scene of Orion is right prandium caninum, a dog's dinner!"—from "Summer's Last Will and Testament" by Thomas Nashe, 1600.

"Mind, if you get blown to bits, don't come running to me for sympathy!"—from a picture caption, in "Punch, or the London Charivari," 1898.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Cluin
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 05:21 PM

"It's a nice day. G'wan outside and blow the stink off ya!"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Bert
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 02:52 PM

From Mum,

"I'll do you with the rough end of a pineapple"
"You look like a sack of shit tied up with string"

From Dad,

"You know what Thought did?"

"No"

"Shit his pants"

"Did he?"

"No, he only thought he did"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: lady penelope
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 02:13 PM

LOL! I'd forgotten some of these (Have you seen the back of your neck? What a classic!)

My mother's favourites..

"Ach, haud yer whist" (be quiet)
"Ach, it's far aff yer backside, ye willnae sit on it" (anything painful that you complained about)
"Yer neither sugar no salt, ya willnae melt" (for when complaining about getting wet)
"Who rattled your cage?" (For when you bothered her about anything...)
"Get that lip aff the flair" (for when you weren't happy for whatever reason)
"You'll be laughing on the other side of yer face in a minute" (General threat of violence.. *G*)
"You're a clatty bugger" (for despairing at your general state)
"What did your last slave die of?"

Aren't mothers wonderful...? LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 01:12 PM

More quotes found with Google Book Search:

"When she entered the kitchen, matters were going on as usual—her mother bustling in style, and as cross 'as a bag of weasels.'"—from "Sketches of Irish Character" by Mrs. S. C. Hall, in "Chambers's Edinburgh Journal," 1845.

"…where the captain was standing as upright as a fathom of smoke in a calm, and the master was bent down like a yard of pump-water measured from the spout, and looking over a chart of the harbour, as busy as the devil in a gale of wind."—from "Tough Yarns, by the Old Sailor," by Matthew Henry Baker, 1835.

"One of the most popular plays locally during the post-Civil War period was a spoof entitled The Irish Aristocracy; or Muldoon's Picnic."—from "Showtime in Cleveland: The Rise of a Regional Theater Center," by John Vacha, 2001.

"Pakapoo ticket: noun, something indecipherable or overly complicated. Australia, 1951. Pakapoo is a Chinese gambling game that appears to outsiders to be quite complicated."—from "The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English," by Eric Partridge, et al., 2006.

"…for helping her to put back the clock by taking her to the right places for her frocks, and toques, and—oh, my giddy Aunt!—her transformations."—from "A Comedy of Mammon," by Ina Garvey, 1908.

"Look at old George down there. There he is! Look at him! He stands like one o'clock half-struck."—from "The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, by One of the Fraternity," by William Green, 1876.

"…afterwards complained that the streets were so crooked and twisted out of all shape that at every corner he was actually afraid he should meet himself coming back the other way."—from "About Tomintoul" by Tom N. Towler, in "The Celtic Monthly," 1903.

"The old adage, 'that the eyes are bigger than the stomach,' may be applied to many an Amphytrion as well as school-boy."—from "Essays, Moral, Philosophical, and Stomachical, on the Important Science of Good-Living," by Launcelot Sturgeon, 1823.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Cluin
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 10:54 AM

My mom uses a regular cuss:   "Oh, bitch and be buggered!"

Is that natural progression, Mom?

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 10:40 AM

bill - that was fascinatiang -- thank you soooooomuch - I have wondered about that expression for years and you even solved the finny addan border. Made my day. Tks.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Bizibod
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 10:20 AM

My Welsh grandfather- in -law as a term of extreme surprise or frustration would exclaim ,"Jesus Patsy !"
And my grandma would warn us to stand well back on the railway station as "the steam will draw you under! "
As little   kids my brother and I when admonished and told to apologise used to flip our t shirts over our heads.No idea why we thought this the correct procedure !

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Becca72
Date: 01 Nov 08 - 07:20 AM

In my family the color was "sky-blue pink with purple polka dots"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 31 Oct 08 - 09:34 PM

I thought it would be interesting to use Google Book Search to find out how old some of these expressions are. Here are partial results:

"Yes, the one with a face like a plateful of mortal sins."—from "The Big House," a play by Brendan Behan, 1957.

"There were no symptoms of her having had her clothes flung on with a pitchfork, nor of having been drawn through a hedge backwards."—from "Sketches of Character" by Jane Kennedy, 1851.

"I thort this mornin' he looked as ef he'd been dragged through a knothole."—from "The Yale Literary Magazine," 1851.

"Now, I'm prepared to back this office against the world; but remember, if I catch any of you at that, it's goodnight nurse! You understand?"—from "Poor Dear Theodora!" by Florence Irwin, 1920.

"…that if ever he troubled him again upon such a paltry subject, his intention was to give him such a proper hiding, as would prevent the best of his friends from knowing him again for about a month of Sundays."—from "Memoirs of a Picture" by William Collins, 1805.

"Judas Priest! How high up we are!"—from "To and Through Nebraska" by Frances I. Sims Fulton, 1884.

"If you say that 'ere again, I'll knock you into the middle of next week!"—from "American Comic Annual," 1831.

I might post more tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 31 Oct 08 - 04:08 AM

Looks like a tornado went through here!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 31 Oct 08 - 04:05 AM

I had a Botany/biology teacher in HS whose faavorite little refrain was "Do you know what a suprize is? A fart with a lump in it!" It was funny, once.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 07:33 PM

TRUEBRIT---I thought for years that MY mother had invented "sky-blue pink" to tease us kids about the color of something, but in some earlier thread I learned it was just something she collected.


Here is the best explanation I have seen.

When she was in her 70s, I found a ceramic tile that was indeed, pink mixed with sky-blue. I gave it to her for her birthday.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Sorcha
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 06:45 PM

Slag, you forgot 'air biscuit'

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 05:48 PM

Unka Dave! Pepsi Cola had an advertisement back in the 50's which stated "Pepsi Cola hits the spot..." I can't remember the last rhyme because everyone I knew would answer the first line with "...especially when you're on the pot!" Oh what clever little minds!

Another was "Ah ha! Sani-flush! Cleans your teeth without a brush!" Sani-flush was, of course, a toilet bowl cleaner but I can't remember if that was the product which was being lampooned.

Georgian Ag,

   Good night! Sleep tight!
   Don't let the bedbugs bite!
   If they do, hit 'em with a shoe
   Then charge them all a dollar fifty-two!

As for flatulence euphemisms could be an entirely new thread. A few:

Cut the cheese
Squeezed the cheese
Toot
Break wind
The above noted "Stepped on a frog"
Let one
Your burp went out the backdoor

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 02:18 PM

My dad would say "I'll jerk a knot in your tail!"—a semi-humorous way of threatening violence.

When my shoe soles wore out, he'd say, "Can't you just pick 'em up an' set 'em down?", meaning, I suppose, don't drag your feet.

If he noticed me picking my nose, he'd say, "Are you goin' fishin'?"
I'd say (before I learned the joke), "No. Why?"
He'd say, "I see you're diggin' for bait."
After that, "Goin' fishin'?" was a sufficient reprimand.

(By the way, when I was a kid, I never heard of artificial lures, or of buying worms or minnows. We always dug up our own worms.)

About something worthless, he'd say "That ain't worth a hoot in a whirlwind." (I suppose "hoot" was a euphemism for "fart" but I didn't figure that out until much later.)

Another euphemism for "farted" was "stepped on a frog." (I have never actually stepped on a frog, but I suppose it sounds like a fart. I also suppose that literally stepping on a frog was a more common experience when people had to go outdoors to use the outhouse, even at night. Imagine doing that barefoot!)

The cruelest thing my father ever said to me—and he said this more than once—was, "I'll take you back to the hospital." See, before I knew where babies really came from, I thought babies came from hospitals. When a couple decided they wanted a baby, they would go to a hospital and pick one out. Later (I was told) if they decided they didn't like the one they had, they could take him back and exchange him. "Next time, I'll get a good little boy," he'd say. Even after I no longer believed he could do that, he could still make me cry by saying it. I cried because I believed he really meant it—he really wished he could take me back, and he didn't care that I knew it. He was, in other words, a real asshole. I never thought I'd do it, but I cried when he died.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Gurney
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 03:27 AM

My mother and her mother used to say " Tidy yourself up,(or something) you look like nobody owns you!"
This in the English midlands.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 02:16 AM

And I just remembered another one -- to stress when she didn't care a person or thing my mum would say, " I don't care if s/he/it is sky blue pink with a finnyaddan border' -- at least that is what it sounded like...... Anyone ever heard that one?

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 06:48 PM

Georgiansilver,

What was this food for thought that you kept in your bed?