Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 02:18 AM

WARNING:
I know it's an old thread, but I gotta comment.
---------------------
In "Wildwood Flower" there is often a line "...The pale and the leader and eyes look so  blue," which never made any sense to me.  The line used to be (in the late 19th C.) "...the pale emelita [amanita] and islip so blue."  Emelita, amanita, and islip are flowers.  The Carter family sang the misheard line, and it was perpetuated.

Sorry for the repetition, if you've read this in another thread, but one of my favorite examples of misheard lyrics becoming widely accepted is 
Let a smile be your umbrella."    The song was originally "Let us smile be' your umbrella," with "be'" being a contraction of "beneath."  Now nobody seems to know the origin of this mondegreen.

One example of how a word has evolved, partly through misuse, is "vulgar," which originally meant "of the common people" and morphed over time into meaning
base" or "vile."

Peter, I concur that "literally" has begun to be widely used to mean "virtually," as in "the judge literally threw the book at him" or "the judge literally gave the defendant a slap on the wrist" or "he literally flew out of the room."

Then there's Churchill's phrase "blood, tears, toil and sweat"  (Is that right?) which has been morphed into  "Blood, sweat and tears."

Jeri, Margo, "spit and image" means that someone not only looks like someone else but is identical even in rather basic physical attributes.  I think Richard Bridge is onto something with that "voodoo" reference.

Bill  D., so That's where "fuckin' A" comes from!  That expression never made any sense to me.

bseed, thanks for mentioning "parameter"/"perimeter."  As someone who used to study statistics, I abhor the corruption of the word "parameter" to mean "guidelines," "specifications," "boundaries," or whatever the speaker wishes it to mean.

bert, I was always taught (in English class, radio and TV workshop, speech class, etc.) to say "Feb-ru-ary."

One you may have missed -- not one that has become standard English, but humorous, nevertheless -- is "Sick-as-hell anemia"   (cycle-cell anemia).

Genie

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:09 AM

A friend of mine whose first language is not English still has some words and expressions that she hasn't quite assimilated.

For instance, the exclamation 'good gracious'. She knows about glaciers- this is Alaska, after all- so she hears it as Good Glacious!

Complaining about her son's thick-headedness she says that 'he is so stubbert.

I don't correct her- unless she says something that might be misconstrued. She once told me that she had to swing by the auto shop, that her mechanic had left a wrench 'in my behind'. I cautioned her that we say 'in the back seat'.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:19 AM

Kinda like a Brit saying to an American woman, "I'll knock you up in the morning," eh, Ebbie.

Genie

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: JudeL
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 04:40 AM

I know this is an old thread but the phrase "bog standard" means something ordinary, commonplace and unremarkable - years ago some program was going through the history of household inventions and it said that the phrase came about because of the name of the firm which all but had a monopoly on making toilet bowls, such that almost every toilet in the country was a Bog Standard toilet bowl. Even today in the uk a common slang word for a toilet is "a bog". It claimed that the phrase "box standard" was a corruption and slight change of meaning by those who preferred not to use a phrase referring to toilets.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 05:14 AM

Margo, (back in June '99) said
"Yes, Bert. It should be "I couldn't care less". I had some friends who would say, "jeat? No, Jew?" They were saying "Did you eat? No, did you?" It's amazing how a little lazy tongue can change an expression. I have a friend who insists on saying things her way. She likes to say "Flahita" instead of Fajita. I've corrected her and she tells me to leave her alone. Hmmm........good thing her daughter is an excellent speller. "

I agree, a 'little lazy tongue' can certainly put a smile on ones face!

Nigel

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 06:20 AM

genie,

its not (cycle-cell anemia). should be sickle cell anaemia.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: JJ
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 09:03 AM

Way back on 11 Jun 99, Margo mentioned her annoyance with the police chief of Portland, Oregon, who said "dis" and "dat."

I believe that's the suddenly-famous Chief Moose, now of Montgomery County, Maryland.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 09:43 AM

Actually parameters, in computer science, are defined within possible ranges. A parameter uysually has a limiting value or boundary beyondwhich it can't be set and returns ann error. It has nothing to do with perimeters, which are geometrical bounds, but then again computerists talk about areas of information as "spaces". Marketing people talk about market niches in terms of "spaces" -- comes from too many MBAs trained in Excel and Powerpoint slides thinking that fancy graphs are real. These are part of a longer-term trend to use mental or intellectual terms to characterize the real world, making existence into a giant intellectual video game. Bad moon on the right, folks!

A

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:19 PM

T in Oklahoma said:

"In "The Wreck of the Old 97", the words "lost his airbrakes" were misinterpreted as "lost his average." It is often heard with the latter words."

"Lost his airbrakes" makes no sense at all. A train's brakes are "deadman brakes"--that is, if you lose the air, the brakes come on; they are held off from application by the air. So unless you think that the application of brakes caused the accident, it wouldn't be "lost his airbrakes".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:22 PM

"Lost his average" always made sense to me, in the sense that an engineer had to make a certain average speed to reach his destination on time. While he was doing great until he jumped the rails, at that point he had no hope of making his average speed made good or his schedule.

A

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:27 PM

Mr. Happy, you're right, of course, about "sickle-cell anemia." I know better, but it was late at night and I was half asleep when I posted that. Glad you corrected it.

Genie

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:28 PM

Another popularly accepted misquote is, All that glitters is not gold."

As Shakespeare wrote it, it was "All that glisters is not gold."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:31 PM

Yes, JJ, that's our own erstwhile Moose, all right!

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 03:46 PM

LEJ said: "But he stopped! It wouldn't be nearly as cute coming from a 34 yr old. How about "eXpresso" or "let me AKS you a question."

But it's interesting that Noah Webster, the great dictionary builder, prescribed "Aks".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 04:19 PM

IIRC, back in the "beatnik" era, when coffeehouses began to proliferate, the term "expresso" was commonly used. I think it was merely an Anglicization (Americanization) of the Italian word.

It was not until I visited Italy in 1971 that I really noticed the Italian word "espresso." While I prefer using the Italian word (since I learned to speak a little Italian), at the same time I can see the switch from "expresso" to "espresso" in the US as a bit of an affectation, the trendiness characteristic of expensive coffee shops where nobody drinks "coffee," they only drink "latte," "mocha," "espresso," etc.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 08:43 PM

Genie -- sorry to point out another gaffe in your post, but amanita is a mushroom, not a flower.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 02 - 10:12 PM

Michael, as I understand it, from other discussions of "Wildwood Flower," amanita is also the name of a flower, not just the name of a mushroom. Several earlier versions of the song have the singer "twining and mingling" her "raven black hair" with myrtle, amanita, and islip. I doubt that she's putting mushrooms in her hair. (It could be that saying "amanita" instead of "emelita" for the flower is a colloquialism.)

BTW, here's another example of something that's become widely used and accepted but is really a misuse of a term. I just noticed an online news site that is offering video footage that they warn "may contain graphic images." I know that the use of "graphic" to mean "grisly" or "macabre" or "gory" has become widespread, which probably means the new dictionaries have accepted that meaning. But "graphic" literally, and traditionally, means something more like "picturesque" or "vivid" in relation to the ability of the printed or spoken word to elicit imagery in the mind of the hearer or reader. So, really, to say that a picture is "graphic" is a bit like saying a book has letters and words in it. How can a picture not be "graphic?"

Genie

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 11:03 AM

Yes "graphic" and also "hard-core" are annoying terms for explicit, or merely present, or whatever. Hard-core sex is puzzling, because it tends to mean simply sex, and graphic violence turns out to be violence. I would prefer designating terms for that which is merely suggested, rather than use a tautology to emphasise or hype-up an ingredient. But then I would also prefer a whiter tint of pale, and that you and I travel to the beats of different drums.

   I'll explain this one more time about the CCR lyric--there's a babboon on the right. Don't go around tonight, it's bound to take your life. Why would anyone warn you against a bathroom or a "bad moon" on the "rise?" It makes no sense. Watch out for that baboon, though.

   My favorite misprint is in the Riverside Shakespear, when the ghost says that his brother's gifts were "poo" compared to his own.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: DMcG
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 11:23 AM

I read of a mondegreen today, spotted by Cecil Sharp, no less, which I have not seen quoted elsewhere

"The singer learned the song from her mother, who always sang the first two lines as:

Do rain, Do rain, American corn
Do rain both greate and small

Clearly, 'American corn' is a corruption of 'in Merry Lincoln'"

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Hippie Chick
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 11:29 AM

Spirit and Image is correct, it was a Colonial expression, I believe, slurrred eventually into "spittin' image"

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 11:32 AM

Spirit===>sprit===>spit

A

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: beadie
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 12:51 PM

Genie:

    Oh, . . . . I don't know. If the singer playing "Wildwood Flower" has had any experinece in San Francisco, putting mushrooms in your hair might not be so far-fetched.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 12:58 PM

?? "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella," Sammy Fain, music, and lyrics by Kahal and Wheeler, © 1928. Copyright Mills Music (now under EMI).
It was not copyrighted in the form that you suggest ("us - beneath"). Where did you get that information?

Vulgar can cause problems because of its several meanings. This from the OED (I love their little mini-essays):
Serviette- "The older use of the word was exclusively Sc. In the 19th c. it was re-introduced with the French spelling (at first only as a foreign term). It may now be regarded as naturalized, but latterly has come to be considered vulgar."
The average vulgar Englishman and Canadian have taken to the word. Be careful about pointing out that serviette is considered vulgar and you run the risk of getting your clock dialed.

There is no such flower as amanita; in botanical nomenclature the name is restricted to a particular genus of fungi (pointed out before). Emelita-emanita is another misheard or invented word. A flower in the original 1860 song was arrownetta. This went through a succession of flowers, real and imaginary, in the versions of the song. We can only speculate about what flowers are meant by the Carters- they may have had no specific flowers in mind- just sang what sounded nice and fit the scan. This has been discussed ad nauseum- see thread 4074. (No, no one now seems to know which flower answered to the name arrownetta).

My rant and rave is about "impact." It has replaced both effect and affect in vulgar usage.
("Aktually-ektually," vulgar in the sense of not refined goes back to the 16th c. in print and the meaning you deplore was common by the 18th century. This hydra-headed word is troublesome).

"Dis and dat," mentioned in a post above. Th-words are a real problem to bilingual people, especially those whose native language is French. The Prime Minister of Canada can say these and those properly when he has time to think, but when extemporizing, out comes dese and dose. I was raised in a Spanish-rich area, and I have the same problem with words where the initial vowel is "u." I find the "yew" sound foreign.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 01:58 PM

Guest, I got that information ("Let us smile be' your umbrella...") from the oldtimers in my family years ago.  (They were around when the expression was common.)  I'll have to do some research to find printed material on it.  As for the copyright info, I could ask where you got that.  I often find sheet music printed with a copyright date that pertains to the arrangement and the sheet music itself, not the original publication of the work, and especially not to the original publication of earlier versions.  (E.g., I see sheet music of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" with copyright dates in the 1970s.)  I am not claiming that the specific song -- entire lyrics, tune, etc. -- that was published in 1928 was older than that.  IIRC, I was told that that song was based on an older song or poem.   If anyone has any further background info, I'd be interested in finding it.

BTW, I don't "deplore" the current (longstanding) use of the word "vulgar."  I was merely commenting on the evolution of the word's meaning.Date: 17-Feb-98 - 09:21 PM
----------------
From an earlier thread on Wildwood Flower:
From: BSEEDKRATZ
Date: 25-Jul-98 - 07:23 PM

amanita is not only the name of a mushroom, it is also the name of a flower--and, yes, the woman is talking of twining flowers in her hair, throughout the song:

The flower that, along with the islip so blue, is being twined with the singer's "mingles of raven black hair," may have originally been "arrownetta," and that name may well have been a colloguialized version of "aronatus,"  just as folks nowadays often say "gladiola/gladiolas" instead of "gladiolus/gladioli."  (I know folks who call that long green vegetable "asparagrass," too.)  It also appears in some versions as amaranthus, emanita, amanita, and emelita.  Other versions have it as "...the pale oleander and islip... ."  The point is that the song was about putting flowers in her hair--even if the flower names were not the official ones in botany textbooks, and somehow the line got mondegreened into "the pale and the leader and eyes look so blue."

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 03:20 PM

This from the Songwriters Hall Of Fame: Sammy Fain biography.
"Around that time (1925) Fain met lyracist Irving Kahal...." "Their first song, on which Francis Wheeler also collaborated on the words was 'Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella' in 1927." Fain and Kahal also wrote "Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine."
Copyright EMI Mills Music Inc./Fain Music, copyright transferred to The Songwriters Hall of Fame © 2002.
Information from www.songwritershalloffame.org Songwriters
Note: This site works with IE but not with my Netscape (and/or server).
I am 80 yars old so quite familiar with the song. It became a big hit much later for Perry Como, about 1960.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 04:03 PM

Good info, Guest. Still doesn't speak to the issue of whether the phrase evolved from "let us smile be' your umbrella" or whether that phrase was known in an earlier poem or song.

Wish I were better at searching literary archives so I could delve more into the history of the phrase. I've no doubt that by 1925 in the US nobody used the contraction "be'" for "beneath." My understanding was that that usage was older English and probably from the other side of the pond.

Genie

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 29 Oct 02 - 04:08 PM

Ackshuly, I have heard the line as interpolated as "Bad moon in the night," which almost makes sense. In the second place, I have have also heard the "Swell Fwoop" as another mangling of "Fell Swoop."
Nice interpretation of "Spit and Image."

Not too long ago, I heard that asparagus derived from "Sparrow Grass." I don't know whether it is true or not.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 04:45 AM

Genie: I agree that "be'" as a contraction for 'beneath' is unlikely, as it is to open to misunderstanding. If 'beneath' needs to be used as a monosyllable, the usual contraction is "'neath". As in the 1934 John Wayne film title "'Neath Arizona Skies"

Nigel

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 09:52 AM

Interpolated? Anyway, it's a babboon. On the right. Don't say you weren't warned.

Why does ehconomic turn into eekonomic? Is it in hard times, when we must eek out a living? Will students take Home Eek?

   People laughed at Al Gore about the internet, but why do you think they call those mathematical models AlGorithms. Or maybe that belongs on the oxymora thread.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 03:15 PM

No, Fred, we don't take "home eek," but we do talk about the "ek-onomy," not the "eck-onomy."

BTW, during the 2000 US presidential campaign, I came close to having a button that said "Is 'Algorithm' an oxymoron?" and another one that said "Al Gore claps on one and three."

(Actually, I thought more about this when I saw Gore dance at the 1993 inaugural ball.)

Genie

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Genie
Date: 30 Oct 02 - 10:50 PM

Typo there, Fred. We do talk about the "eek-onomy," not the "eck-onomy."

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Mr Happy
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 03:52 AM

as a prelude to some films on tv, the announcer will sometimes say 'this film contains strong language'

this means the dialogue will include frequent use of the F word, as:'F you, you FFing FFer!'

to me this isn't STRONG language at all- it's very WEAK language- indicating a serious deficiency in the adjective department of the speaker.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 09:26 AM

EBarnacle said:

"Not too long ago, I heard that asparagus derived from "Sparrow Grass." I don't know whether it is true or not. "

According to ORIGINS, A Short Etymological Dictionary of the English Language,
"asparagus: adopted from Latin, from Greek asparagos or aspharagos, originally a shoot or sprout, akin to Avestic sparegha, a sprout: asparagos could represent a- for ana, up+sparganto swell. (Boisacq)."

No sparrow grass. Sorry. "Folk etymology" is fun, but don't rely on it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 09:29 AM

Well, I don't know. I think it means that there can be menace in it, in that it's sort bad-faith use of language, suggesting action comes next. I think part of the point of profanity as an idiom is that it provides one-size-fits all terms for occasions when the idea is that the speaker doesn't see any point in being acurate or specific. It seems to say There's no point discussing it. I was interested in a discussion of whether and why and how to use profanity in writing, on another forum, and Mamet's American Buffalo seemed to me a good example of how it was one corrosive element in the sad and tenuous relationships, leading to violence. I may surf old threads about it here, about what profanity means and all. More thoughtful minds here, generally.
   But I've wondered whether phrases like Bite me, or Nailed, which seem recent to me, evolved as t.v. censor substitutes for older terms, and have now become generally accepted.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 09:50 AM

Fred,

I'm sure their evolution had nothing to do with TV censorship. Expressions like that evolve amongst juvenile and other sorts of weak minds all the time. Long before television or radio, similar evolutions were producing vulgar expressions for various parts and functions.

A

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 09:58 AM

"Sparrow grass" may have originated with a mistake, but it is a very old one.

Some people think the word "crap" is derived from Thomas Crapper's name, but it doesn't.

I have heard people refer to the mailing of packages as "partial post".

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST,JoeBlake Australia
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 10:08 PM

Have just found this web. Sounds like fun.

Try this one. How is that the two words "helicopter" and "ornithopter" apparently both use a derivation from the Greek "pter" (wing - cf pterodactyl - roughly "wing finger"), yet we abbreviate "helico-pter" to "copter"?

Going back a while in the thread to the "Whole Nine Yards", a fanciful derivation could be from the German, meaning "after all the debating and voting is over" (No/Yes - Nein/Ja's).

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 05:22 PM

Sharon, why is knitting an African so different from knitting an Afghan? Or an Iraqui, or an Indian, for that matter? ;-)

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 05:31 PM

I was educated in an earlier age, when the TEACHERS had been drilled in the use of the language and spelling, so that they knew what they were about it teaching the kids. Today's teachers were brought up in the "progressive education" era, so that when THEY say, "It's not important to spell correctly (or use correct grammar), as long as the meaning is clear," it's not really because of educational or philosophical reasons; it's because they don't know how themselves.

My opinion; agree or not agree, makes me no never-mind.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Flash Company
Date: 09 Aug 05 - 07:00 AM

Oh, Uncle DaveO, How I agree with you! We have a friend who has a son who is a Deputy Head at a Comprehensive School in the UK. She is always telling him off for poor punctuation and spelling, and he always says 'It doesn't matter'
She once asked him, So that means that 'What is this thing called love?' means the same as 'What is this thing called, love?' does it.
His reply 'Now you are being pedantic'
Incidentally, the one that really grates with me, used frequently on TV by people who are supposed to be experts, is 'Drawring' for 'Drawing'

FC

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST, Hamish
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 04:50 AM

"The whole nine yards"? Meaning genuine. A kilt is made out of nine yards of cloth - all those pleats. Kilt-like skirts may be made out of less cloth.

As far as I am aware, that's where the expression comes from.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 10 Aug 05 - 05:05 AM

"The whole nine yards" is typical American hyperbole. The British version is "the whole nine inches".

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 07:59 AM

The whole 9 yards is an expression from American football surely?
G

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 12:57 PM

Mark Ruffe, I'm from Minnesota, and I do indeed say "Feb-ru-ary".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 01:00 PM

Well Dave you do better than many of the folks this side of the pond, who seem to think it's pronounce Feb-ewe-arry, boy does it piss me off too!
Giok

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 01:03 PM

Somebody asked,

Where has the logic gone?"

Long time passing.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 02:25 PM

The sort of person who would pronounce it "Feb-yew-ary" is our dear Chickenhawk in Chief.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: Amos
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 03:20 PM

...who thinks Febyewry is the seccon munf in a newklear winter.


A

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 03:39 PM

Perzackly Amos.

Subject: RE: Misspoken, misheard, but accepted.
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 04:16 PM

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!