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

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:39 AM

Tu resemble comme le Wreck du Hesperus.
Pas dans une mois de Dimanches.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Slag
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 05:40 AM

You know, some wit once chimed (I think it may have been Mark Twain) "The American and the English are a people separated by a common language!"

I'd have to disagree after reading this thoroughly enjoyable thread. Those phrases and idioms seem to be common the world over and I imagine there is a perpetual symphony being continuously spoken around the clock in the several billion English speaking people of these everyday phrases.

I wonder how many of them translate into other languages, verbatim?

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:14 AM

For the pulling funny faces one....my mum used to say "If the wind changes, you'll stay like that"
If we clomped around the house.."You've got your iron boots on again"
If we were being 'naughty'..and it was one I really hated... "The bogey man will get you"!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: JennieG
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 01:38 AM

TRUBRIT, many of those expressions were ALSO used in Oz in the 50s-60s when I was growing up....not just in the UK and US.

I suppose having a go at one's kids transcends all borders......

I also used to get "I'll give you something to cry for" - she would too, my mother was very quick with her fists where I was concerned. Now it would be called psychological and physical abuse. It probably was.

Cheers
JennieG who has always tried to be kinder to her own kids

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 09:32 PM

Interesting -- I always heard (and still say) a goose walked over your grave when I shiver.

And for a mouthy man always boasting of his conquests but perhaps not actually having any we used to say....;'he's all mouth and no trousers.......'

We were told to .....'use the eyes God gave you....'(no color specified) and for taking too much food,.........'your eyes are bigger than your stomach.....'

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 07:31 PM

Said of the local woman who was always showing off and trying to appear well off. "That one.....She's all fur coat and no knickers"

"What a misery, wandering about with a face like a slapped arse"

One I never fathomed out...about a local girl who had a reputation for being easy.
"Oh her, she's no better than she should be".............PARDON?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:32 PM

I don't think anyone already mentioned this one above:

If a kid was "looking all over" for something that had (he thought) disappeared, but that was right there in plain sight, my mother would either point it out or hand it to him, and say, "If it had been a snake, it'd have bit you!"

Or maybe she'd say, "Open your big blue eyes!" Or just "Open your big blues!" (Despite the fact that all of us kids had brown eyes.)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

From the Irish side of the family:

For an ugly person, or somebody with a sour, angry expression: "She's got a face like a plateful of mortal sins."

A quiet chap who used to visit when I was a kid, who never smoked or drank or swore, was known behind his back as "The Creeping Jesus".

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 01:11 PM

"If you don't get a haircut pretty soon, we're going to have to get you a dog license."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 10:59 AM

From Nana Sullivan:
Pity the poor pelican. His beak can hold more than his belly can (on taking more food than you could eat)
And
The crow of a hen and the whistle of a woman wakes the devil from his lair. (My brothers were forbidden to teach me to whistle and to this day, I don't)

If you make that face and someone hits you on the back you'll be stuck that way.

Someone just walked on your grave. (If you got a shiver up your spine)

If you hit your mother, when they bury you, that hand will rise out of the grave. (I often tell this to Freddie the cat who will end up on his back with all four paws in the air.)

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 01:01 AM

According to my Mom, going out in the winter without a hat would cause me to get the "epizootic". This was even worse than the "crud".

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Slag
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 12:53 AM

I had a colorful uncle. He is responsible for my occasional "Judas Priest!" outbursts. One of his phrases (usually about a guy with a beard [I wear a beard now]) "He looks like the south end of a north-bound horse!"

I always wished my folks had adopted a Korean because that was always who wanted the food which I didn't!

"Close the door! You're letting our flies out!"
"Close the door! You're letting the 'cold' out!" once we got air conditioning. Or, "What are you trying to do? Heat the great outdoors?" in Winter.
Fidgety? "You got worms?"
"Lord, what did I do to deserve this?" or "...you?"
"I'm gonna wear you out." which preceded a whipping!
"If 'ugly' was pennies, s/he'd be rich!"
"Get out from under my feet." or "Come on or I'm going to leave you."
"Pick up your feet" I must have been shuffling.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm gonna straighten you out!"
"They'll stick" That's been adequately covered.
"You'd lose your head if it weren't attached."

I had a friend who sometimes used the expression "He hasn't got the brains God gave a crowbar." Thanks Jane, I use that myself on occasion.

Some of the best advice my Dad gave me was short and pithy, "Learn to think." I heard that a lot and finally did and it saved me from a world of hurt.

"Your other 'left', dummy." Sgt. Martin to anyone who was out of step.

"She'd give 'Frankenstein' (-'s monster) nightmares." Don't recall who gave me that one but it works on occasion.

"Are you just naturally stupid or do you work at it?" from the ozone, I guess.

"You never hear me talk that way." only I DID hear him talk that way on rare occasion and usually directed at me. Oh, how I wanted to answer that but I knew what the consequences would be.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:57 PM

Oh, yeah. I don't know if it happens much any more, though.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:54 PM

I didn't know boys had the classic line - you are not going out looking like that, are you -- thrown at them -- thought it was just we girls......

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:11 PM

Either of my parents when one of us kids spent a long time in the bathroom: "Did you die in there?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:08 PM

Dad (whenever he fixed breakfast and burnt the toast, which was usually): "Go ahead and eat it. It'll put hair on your chest." Or anything I was a little suspicious of: "It's good for what ails you." Actually, he wasn't that bad a cook. But fortunately, Mom did most of the cooking.

Mom: "You're not going out looking like that, are you!??" Applied to both my sisters and me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: GUEST,Ed T
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:01 PM

Curiosity killed the cat
But, satisfaction brought him back.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:42 PM

What's interesting to me is how many of us -- whether US based or not -- had the same things said to us...........and what is equally interesting is how cruel some of the statements were -- if you said half as much to a child today you would be arrested.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 02:54 PM

Too much of that (playing with yourself...masturbating) and you will go blind....my Mum was right....I am now beginning to lose my sight at 60yrs of age!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Neil D
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 02:44 PM

From Dad:
    He's big enough to eat corn fodder.
    Like a fart in a skillet.
    You'd Make a better door than a window.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 12:22 PM

Oh - and just remembered 'You never know where it's been'. In relation to something you have just brought in off the street. Subject of a very good song by Mike Canavan with the chorus -

"Don't bring that in 'ere, lad
The house as just been cleaned
Take it back where it come from
You never know where it's been."

My Mum used to add, particularly if the item in question was particularly unclean "We'll all get cholera morbus". Only just found out that, according to Wikipedia, the term cholera morbus was used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to describe both non-epidemic cholera and other gastrointestinal diseases. You learn something new every day:-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Alice
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 12:06 PM

"like you were dragged through a knothole"
"something the cat dragged in"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 10:57 AM

Exclamation of disbelief or shock - "Oh my giddy aunt"

Who on earth was this giddy aunt?

"Sweet Fanny Adams", as in "It's worth sweet Fanny Adams"

I only figured out years later what the 'FA' of Fanny Adams should have been. Still not sure if Mum realises:-)

My Grandad had many but one I remember, when I turned out one day with hair parted in the middle, 60's 'mod' style. "Thi favvors a Staffudshur mon!' Translation - You favour (look like) a man from Staffordshire. Insult stemming from the days when Staffordshire miners were 'imported' to break a local strike. Funny thing is - Grandads family were from 'Staffudshur' :-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:55 AM

Don't do that, you'll go blind, can I do it half as much and wear glasses ?

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Deckman
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 12:18 AM

My mom was the mean (drunk and stoned) one. She commonly used expressions like: "I'll hit you 17 ways come Sunday". Another favorite was: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice!"

My father always looked for the fun things: His native language was Finnish, but I still use an American expression today: "This is more fun than WHEELS!" Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 11:35 PM

"Eat your dinner. Children are starving in Europe!" This went on well into the early 60s.

From my Dad. "Why don't you eat the heel of the bread? My brothers and I used to fight over it! It's the best part." Well help yourself, then.

When a well-known celebrity's death was announced, Mom would always say in a put-on hillbilly accent "people are a-dyin' what never died before!"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 11:20 PM

St Vitus dance is now called Sydenham's Chorea, and is characterised by jerky uncontrolled movements. A childrens disease. Lots of references by Google.
Yes, my parents used that.

'You look like you found a tanner and lost a bob!"
"You look like a week of wet week-ends."
'Go and tell somebody who's interested."
"You'll do." Never said WHAT I'd do.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:26 PM

(first girlfriend)
I saw her giving you the glad eye........

(first beard)
the things you see when you haven't got a gun.....

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:58 PM

Up above, I cited a few of my mother's habitual sayings from the late 30s and early 40s.

She said "Judas Priest!", too, as mentioned by someone above.

If I took too much food and couldn't eat it all, or asked for more than her experience told her I could eat, it was "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!"

Someone in the family (not my mother), when disappointed or aggravated, would say, "Oh, for cryin' in the beer!"

My cousin Joyce, 5 years older than I, raised just downstairs from me in my grandparents' house, who was such close family that she might have been my sister, had her own namby-pamby version of that last one: "Oh, for cryin' in the beverage!"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: topical tom
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 03:29 PM

When referring to someone whom she believed was superficially smooth-talking and putting on airs, she would say about her "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth!"

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: dulcimer42
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:45 PM

Someone who thought they were better than the rest of us, Mom would call them "hoity-toity".   Mom had some weird words!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: dulcimer42
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:44 PM

Her phrase for "Oh, my G"   was "Judas Priest!"   Who can tell me where that phrase came from!! ??

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

For the curious, here is the incredible story of the Dancing Plague that rampaged over Europe for two hundred years, also known as the St John's or the St Vitus Dance.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 10:39 AM

From Nanny Crump:

She's not backward in coming forward.

Ooooh - hark at you!

(about small children who seem very clever): She's been here before.

You don't get owt for nowt.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: topical tom
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 10:23 AM

"If you see too many naked women you'll go blind".I do notice that my eyesight is failing.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 07:45 AM

From standing in front of the dinlo's dikking-glass (TV) -

You'd make a better door than a window.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:55 AM

My father was alway threatening to 'take my belt off and you'll know what'll happen then?'

NEVER got threatened with "the belt." Daddy was an off-and-on barber and had a BIG razor strop.

[... which was never used in that way except to demonstrate how loud a noise it could make ...]

[[I have a better one now than he had then, but no little kids around to threaten with it.]]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:23 AM

Re: obscuring someone's view - "You're a pain in the neck, not a pane of glass. Move!"

Seamus

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 12:07 AM

I too had the St. Vitus Dance one -- and the 'i'll give you something to cry about....' and the 'i'll give you the back of my hand, girl....'... I also remember very often ' You are not going out in public wearing that are you....? - or words to that effect. Usually spoken in horror in response to a mini skirt -- I used to love wearing those things!!! It is really interesting to read this thread and remember some of the things that were said to us -- some humorous and silly and some downright unkind. I can't imagine people still say things like -- i'll give you something to cry about.......... -- or perhaps I am being naieve and they still do.....

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 11:21 PM

Jeanie. My Mom also used the "St Vitus Dance" comment when I wouldn't sit still. What's up with that? Nobody has had the St Vitus Dance since the Middle Ages have they? Or was there an outbreak in the late 1930s or something?

A friend's Father made this comment to me as I stood in their den : "Ernie, does your Dad work in a glass factory?" After a puzzled moment I said no, and he said "well, I can't see through you, so can you move out from in front of the TV." This had me wondering for quite a while about how my Dad's employment might affect my opacity.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: TRUBRIT
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 10:24 PM

Dressed like a dog's dinner was a (sort of) complimemnt my mum used -- kind of meant looking snazzy but overdone.

Goodness t- this thread has raised some memories......

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM

How about 'No blood, no owie'.
It's a long ways from your heart.
Nobody ever died from that (whatever 'that' currently is/was)
So, your friends'mother allows that? Am I your friends Mother?
You want to do WHAT????
You DO have 'stupid' written on your forehead!
Wanna come home on the end of a razor strop?
Yer not too old to get yer butt beat.
Your boyfriend wants to do WHAT??? How long does he expect to live?
You act like your momma did raise dummies!
He wants to take you WHERE??? for HOW long????

And, honestly, my All Time Favorite from my dad:
Go wash your face.

My 2nd All Time Favorite from Dad:
Tell him just don't try to come in quietly.
(Kendall probably knows what this means)

Reference patchouli oil....you smell like a wet dog.
(I never thought patchouli smelled like a wet dog, do you?)

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: kendall
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 07:41 PM

You're thrashing around like a fart in a mitten.

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 06:15 PM

"You're always running around,...like a flea in a fit."

"Slow down or you'll meet youself coming back".........WHAT?

"If you go playing on that bombsite and you fall and break your leg, JUST DON'T COME RUNNING TO ME!"

Plus most, if not ALL, of the above

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Acorn4
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 05:33 PM

Oh well, I suppose I'll have to suffer in silence as usual!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 04:57 PM

Through a hedge backwards... but if we'd made an effort to look smart, my aunt would say, "My, aren't we posh"!

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 04:36 PM

I've told you a million times...stop exaggerating!!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: kendall
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 04:32 PM

"Just who do you think you are"? (Like you gotta be sombody to have a problem)!

Mothers can't count. They say, "How many times have I told you..." (Bill Cosby)

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Acorn4
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:56 PM

Remember to change your underpants,
In case you have an accident,
And the people in the ambulance,
What would they think of me?
And you won't get through those pearly gates,
With your crusties in a two and eight,
So always put on a clean pair every day!

First four lines mum's,
Last four mine just to round it off!

Subject: RE: BS: Did your mum say this to you.....
From: Becca72
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 01:48 PM

From Uncle Carlton:

"she was so fat I had to go back twice to hug all of her"
"she was so fat she uses Oil of Ole in 40-weight"