Folklore: Old sayings from childhood

Subject: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:19 PM

Every once in a while an old saying comes to mind that takes me back to my boyhood, and I'm wondering if this is common. If so, give them some exposure here.
One of mine is: Sing before breakfast, cry before night.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:25 PM

My mom was always saying "It'll all come out in the wash" only with her Western accent it was "warsh."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Neighmond
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:51 PM

See a penny, pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck!
See a penny, let it lie, wish you had it by-and by!

Chaz

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 08:15 PM

"A stitch in time saves nine."
"A penny saved is a penny earned."
"Ach, du lieber!" (My family is of German-American descent.)
"Das ist heisse!" (ditto)
"We'll see."
"We can't afford bail. No."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:19 PM

A sunshiny shower won't last half an hour.

We too, Kendall, were warned against singing before breakfast. You suppose the folks were trying to keep down early morning noise? :)

One I've heard but that we didn't use was 'What the hey- I'm not gettin' married in this man's town' used when you knew you were going to be seen in public hile wearing an old dress or without your hair done- you get the idea.

I've used the penny, penny bit for my own ends. I made up the notion that after you pick up a penny, it will bring you luck- but you then give it to someone else, assuring them they too will have a lucky day, etc, and that it will persist no matter how far the penny travels. It's amazing how many people respond to the idea- we all want good luck, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:30 PM

"Sing before seven will cry before eleven."
"Rain before seven, dry before 'leven."
"Little boys who play with matches wet the bed."

And one of my all-time favorites, often heard around our house:

"You light that fuse in the house and I'll whack you so hard your brains'll rattle for a week! Now take those firecrackers outside!"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Amergin
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:00 PM

I'll wash your mouth out with soap!

Nathan Isaac Tompkins!

Go stand in the corner!

Go out and cut yourself a switch!

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:01 PM

oh dear....most that come to mind were threats from my father.....usually prefaced by "See what you made me do!"

"You'll be laughing on the other side of you face in a minute"
"I'll tan your backside"
"I'll fix your little red wagon"
"When I finish with you you won't be able to sit down for a week"
"Shut your cakehole"
"whistling girls and crowing hens always lead to some bad end"

Although he sometimes tempered it with:

"They said it couldn't be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That he wouldn't be one
That wouldn't say so till he tried
So he buckled right in
With a trace of a grin
On his face, if he worried he hid it
And he started to sing
As he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done
And he did it."

and

"I wept because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet."

I took the last two to heart and somehow managed to survive childhood.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Ely
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:12 PM

"You can have anything you want, you just can't have EVERYTHING you want."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Deckman
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:30 PM

From my beloved Father: "Mina Rakastaan Sinua" ("I love you") (Finn) Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:03 AM

"Where'djou git them go-to-hell pants???"

Courtesy of Hardi's dad, Stanley.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:20 AM

Cripes...Metchoson....you "sound" like my family.

Toss in the this civil-war era.... sing-song taunt:

White man he smell like Castil-soap
Nigger, he smell like an ol' billy-goat
An I don like a nigga, An I don like a nigga
No How!

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:39 AM

From Hardi's mom: "Don't you EVER let me CATCH you playing in the coalyard..." (or on the train tracks)

From Hardi's younger brother: Ain't MY (fill in the blank)... (describing a crisis about to occur over which he does not plan intervention)


From Grandpa Cleve, "Goddammit to hell!!" and "hellfire!"

From Hardi's great-grandmother, coming from the back bedroom to mutter this and then go back, "Yoyyyymeneeee......"

From Hardi's childhood doctor, "Dot kid got rrrrrrotten troat, I geeev shotttt!"


From Hardi's pals:

Go play marbles on the freeway.

Hey kid yer ma dresses ya funny...



From my grandfather, "RRRRRUBBish!"

From my mother, "Beggars can't be choosers."

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Mudlark
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:45 AM

If you don't quit crying I'll give you something to cry about!

A stitch in time saves nine (took me a while to figure that one out)

Spare the rod and spoil the child (ditto...sounded to me like a command, but...)

Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.

Pretty is as pretty does...

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:45 AM

I ain't got a dog in that fight.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:09 AM

See a pin and pick it up and all the day you have good luck (and a pin).

My grandfather used to come up with this one when my cousins (both boys) and my brother would complain about me wanting to play with them rather than my sister (I'd still rather play with them than my sister but one is now a 6'4" beefy fireman.....). He would say this:

All the bulls bain't worth a thing without they got a cow. And neither be the cow much use without it's got the bull.

Made not one bit of sense back then and they still wouldn't let me play....

Another one that never made sense was the 'if you don't shut up I'll give you something to cry for'... usually said to me as I was bawling over a cut finger or a gashed knee. 'But dad/mum, I've already got a cut finger, what else do I need?'

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: open mike
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:36 AM

my dad would often say:

fuzzy wuzzy was a bear,
fuzzy wuzzy had no hair,
fussy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

and something like this:

Yehudi

The other day upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
gee, i wish he'd go away!

my mom used to say:

do it quick,
in 3 shakes of a lamb's tail

and: if we sit down to eat, they will come
(if waiting for someone to join you for dinner)

grandma would say:
I'm filled to sufficiency,
any more would be a superfluity.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:48 AM

Teah, "It's all true - As sure as God made little green apples" (Thanks Nana)

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Jeanie
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 02:37 AM

"Don't make faces like that. The wind might change and you'll be stuck like it."

"What have you got, St. Vitus' Dance ?" (rebuke when fidgeting)

"There's enough blue in the sky to make a pair of sailor's trousers"

"Rain before seven, fine by eleven"

It seems my mother was always pontificating about the weather. Here's another one: "If Candlemas day be fair and bright, winter will take another flight" - (I think it was Candlemas)

"That's a proper Dagwood, that is" (Dagwood was what my mum and dad called a very large 'doorstep' sandwich - I think after a newspaper cartoon character of the 30s/40s ??)

People sitting around for hours drinking tea were called "Mrs. Mazawattees" - after a tea-drinking mechanical figure in shop windows advertising "Mazawattee Tea".

Two favourite expressions from my old headmistress, who went by the wonderful (real) name of Miss Bubbers:
"Don't be a silly mutt !" - "Show some stickability, girl !"

All of the above are now being inflicted on my poor, longsuffering daughter... and so it goes on...


- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 03:01 AM

Red sky at night, sailors delight.
Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.

A penny for your thoughts.

Well, who do you think you are? the queen of England?

Sew your clothes upon your back, poverty you'll never lack.

I'll snatch you bald headed!

Even a cow knows its own stall.

Blacker than Zips ass.

That thing about singing before breakfast I think comes from old Puritan belief. We are here to suffer, and all that twaddle.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:07 AM

Probably the MOST frequently heard saying in my family was, "Why is (the) _______________ (dirty, muddy, bleeding, crying, all wet, up on the roof, buried in the backyard, staked to an anthill -- or just fill in the blank with whatever you can imagine)?"

Sometimes this was followed by a telephone call that began, "Mom, don't worry now, but I'm over at the Emergency Room and...."

Or my favorite phone call: "Hi, mom. Listen, I can't talk long but I'm going to be home late. Do me a favor, and if the police ask where I've been tell them we went to the drag races, okay? Thanks, bye."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:16 AM

It'll rain or go dark before morning.

Ask, don't get. Don't ask, don't want.

(answer to "where's dad" etc.: He's in a bottle on the roof.

Black follows green.

Anyone identify this teacher:

"Sir, my pen's run out." "What do you expect me to do, run out after it?"

"What do you expect me to do, stand in a bucket of water and sing a sea shanty?"

etc. ad nauseam.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: harvey andrews
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:24 AM

My Father when suprised by something would say;
"Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Joybell
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:28 AM

From my Dear-one: a geometry teacher - I'll kick you so hard you'll need an operation to get my foot removed.

Bigger kids picking on him -- If I had a dog with a face like yours I'd shave his ass and make him walk backwards.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:40 AM

Who died and made you God?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: boldreynard
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:42 AM

Does "Step on a crack, break your mother's back" count? More a superstition than a saying.
I like the Vermont/New York saying "It's all there", which is said when trying to lift something particularly heavy.
To a pouty child: "That face would make a cow cry."
"Liar, liar, pants on fire" was a common playground taunt.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones/But names will never hurt me."
My wife has introduced "Don't get your knickers in a twist" into the family vocabulary. And of course "Do you have ants in your pants?" for a fidgeter, and "Where's the fire?" to someone rushing along.
About an ugly person: "S/he fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch coming down."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:47 AM

There's nowt wrong wi owt whats gradely o'er sump as lomg as there's tripe in picklin'

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:51 AM

"What's for tea, Mum?"

"Three jumps up the cupboard door and a bite of the knob."

Still never figured that one out. Some otehr nosensical ones.

"You should see the back of your neck..."
"If you don't come here I'll give you such a clout..."

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Allan C.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:53 AM

Jeanie, click here to see a Dagwood sandwich.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: The Walrus
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:17 AM

"If 'ifs' and 'ands' were pots and pans, we'd have no need of tinkers"

"What's for tea, Mum?" usually got the reply
"Bread and pullit" or "Bread and Duck under the table"

One old one from an uncle:
"I was doing this while your Mum was still cutting bread on you..."
(Apparently one of their Grand-mothers had the - then common - habit of cutting bread without using a table and thhe phrase had been carried down the generations).

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: sian, west wales
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:30 AM

My dad's take on the singing things was, "Sing at the table, die in the workhouse," the old misery-guts Calvinistic Methodist that he was.

Does 'misery-guts' count?

Dirt behind neck or ears (and in ears) would generate the accusation from mum, "Whatcha tryin' t' do? Grow putatuhs?"

She also dismissed any illogical argument with, "Ah - yer father's moustache!"

The face which usually accompanied hissy-fits was, "Better stop. Yer face may stick like that."

I seem to recall, "Faint heart never won fair lady" when we were flagging in any project. And 'sooner started, sooner mended'. And 'there's two ends to every stick' for both sides of an argument.

And I, too, could never figure out the sense in 'stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about'.

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:59 AM

From my mum when we asked "What's for dinner?" "Don't know what it is now, but it's bean soup." Also, "You may be as big, but you'll never be as good."

I also remember the taunt "Just because your face looks like a hubcap, doesn't mean to say you're a big wheel."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Amergin
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 11:01 AM

oh i forgot one...."no ifs ands or buts about it except yours"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Auxiris
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 11:11 AM

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

cheers,

Aux

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 11:14 AM

Rip your head off and spit down your neck.
I'll shove your head so far down your neck you'll have to fart to cough.
HumpDay for Wednesday
Hit the Deck!!! (time to get up)
My heart soars like a hawk (from film Little Big Man, next line is--you wanna eat?)

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:02 PM

Fond memories of trips in the family car:

How long till we get there?

Couple hours, honey; couple hours!

Dad's favorite saying:

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!

I may not have mastered that one, but I've sure passed it on my children & my students!

Dad also spent a lot of time trying to teach me the distinction between can & may. I knew the difference, but didn't find it to be socially acceptable in my peer group to speak properly. Sorry, Dad! Nonetheless, I am passing the same message on to the next generation (who also don't want to hear it!).

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:15 PM

In our house, the reply to 'what's for dinner' was always 'iffits'.

In answer to the question, 'what's iffits' (thinking it was some obscure meat by-product like chittlings or lights), the reply was 'iffits in the cupboard, we can eat it'.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: HuwG
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:31 PM

"What did your last servant die from ?"

"Don't argue with your elders and betters." [Yes, that one still makes me seethe, nearly forty years later]

(When asked for a drink) "There's plenty in the tap."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:31 PM

"Put a beggar on horse-back and watch him ride to hell"

"If you break your legs don't come running to me!"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:43 PM

"I want..." "People in hell want ice water."

God made her as ugly as he could, then kicked her in the face.
Ugly as a bucket of assholes.
Slicker than deer guts on a door knob.
If he grows any taller, he will have to fork again.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Carly
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 02:30 PM

It will all be the same in a hundred years.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 02:39 PM

Kendall, I forgot about people in Hell wanting ice water. My mother was fond of that one, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: sian, west wales
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 03:23 PM

A friend just reminded me of one from her mother, if my friend did something dumb because her friend did something dumb ... "And if (friend's name) stuck her finger in the fire would YOU stick your finger in the fire?????"

Mothers are very good at having the last word, aren't they?

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:22 PM

Yes Mum!

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:54 PM

"Your Mother sees you doin' that and she'll put the wood on you! from my Father. And a favorite of mine, which I often heard from a friend who heard it growing up "What he needs is a sound thrashing about the head and ears."

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Bert
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 11:18 PM

Sticks like shit to a blanket. (charming grandmother I had)
If pigs could fly and elephants wore high hats.
A whistling woman and a crowing hen are neither use to God nor men.
Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which gets full first.
Daft as Arseholes.
He wouldn't know his dick from his thumb if it didn't have a nail on it.
You look like a sack of shit tied up with string.
You look like a bundle of arseholes tied up ugly.
Straight as dockey's hook.
Straight as a dog's hind leg.
The man who never made a mistake, never made anything.
The wind will change. Or if the wind changes you'll stick like that (to someone making faces)
Thick as two short planks.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 11:26 PM

Jumped on that like a chicken on a June bug.....
Only sane people are me and thee and sometimes I wonder about thee.
Shit on a stick.
He thinks his shit don't stink.
Hit with a Ugly Stick forty 'leven times.
If pigs had wings.
....like flies on shit.
Dumber than a box of rocks.
Two bricks shy of a load.
Half a bubble off.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 11:29 PM

And one more......
If hop toads had wings, they 'ud fly to keep from bumpin' they butts on the ground.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 05:40 AM

Useless as a screen door in a submarine
or a trap door in a canoe

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,madwaff at work
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 06:58 AM

All about like a fart in a fan (Grandad's favorite)

If you sit on concrete you'll get kingcough (I think they meant piles....!)

About as much use as a chocolate fireguard

Scrub your nails, they're black-bright

You have the brains of a rocking-horse!

...and Mum's usual cry - "I want to tie a label on you saying 'this child was clean when she left home'..."

madwaff