Folklore: Old sayings from childhood

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:53 PM

From grandparents:

Hey is for horses! (Don't say "Hey!")

They must have seen you coming! (You bought something you didn't need.)

You'll have potatoes growing in your ears if you don't wash them!

Your face'll stay that way! (if you're making one)

"Each to his own taste," as the old woman said when she kissed the cow.

Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.

"I see," said the blind man.   ("Ah! Now I get it!")

Curiosity killed the cat.

Two thick never stick. ("Friends(or sweethearts)who are too close will always drift apart.")

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

The more I see of people the better I like dogs.

If I had a nickel for every time so-and-so said that, I'd be rich!

Blind as a bat.

You've got bats in your belfry.

Who was your n***** waiter last year? ("Don't give me orders!")

Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Strong as a h'isting horse. (That is, one of the Percherons or other big horses that used to be used for raising cargo or timbers off a deck or at a construction site.)

A face that would stop a clock.

Dead as a doornail.

Gives me the willies.

Black as pitch. (a dark night)

Fog's thick as pea soup.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:08 PM

You may be a pain, but I can't see thru you (said when you are blocking the view).

Binna bareda bitcha = If it had been a bear, it would have bitten you (said when you are looking for something and it is right in front of you).

It takes eyes to look, but brains to see (likewise).

Where there's no sense, there's no feeling (said when you don't seem to mind some discomfort -- e.g., when you are out in the cold without a jacket).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: JennyO
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 09:22 PM

Q. What's for dinner? A. Fresh air on toast and duck under the table.


If you keep biting your nails, you will end up with a little bag of nails in your stomach.


If you don't eat your crusts your hair won't curl

to which I would reply

I don't want my hair to curl

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Cluin
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:56 PM

Quit bouncin' around like a bubble in pisspot! If I have to pull this car over...



(Hey, that's what Scenic Lookouts were invented for, right?)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:11 PM

As referred to by Open Mike, when my mother was exasperated she'd say, "Good night, NURSE!" If I dared to feel sassy, I'd echo back, "Good NIGHT, nurse!"

My grandmother, catching me with matches, would solemnly assure me that "Little boys who play with matches wet the bed!"

My stepfather would tell me that when he was a kid his family was so poor that the would have "breaded nothing" for supper.

My mother: "This is the last time I'm going to tell you to (whatever)!" And I, in a sassy mode: "Good!"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:35 PM

from my Mum

oh what fun
oh what fun
shooting peas up a nanny goat's bum

(yes I know it doesn't rhyme)

Jemima Jones and me
we both sat up a tree
we had no shimmies
to cover our jimmies
Jemima Jones and me

(and yes I know it doesn't make sense!)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: tarheel
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 05:29 PM

but mom,if....   well,if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their tails!!!!

also...we use to say,i 'spect so!...(Meaning,i expect so...)
but mom would interrupt with....well,if you speck,what does a fly do?
then there was this reply after some great statement!... no hock,sherlock!
i had an elderly aunt who always asked me if i got a whoppin' in school that day....of course i'd say no and she would always reply with... well,they didn't give you justice then,did they?
then we we kids would have something that we were trying to hide,mom would ask...what do you have? of course the reply would be,... 'nutin!!!and mom would say... well,did you bring anything to put it in?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Jack Hickman
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 04:26 PM

How about "dumber than a bag of rubber mallets?"

Or "she has a face like the wave on a slop bucket."

Does anyone but me remember the slop bucket.

Jack Hickman

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:29 AM

And Bob's your Uncle - said after doing something quickly and successfully

Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn - a poor shot

Put that in your pipe and smoke it - a parting shot

Skinnier than a sack of deer horns

Skookum - something well built or strong

Now that's a fine kettle of fish - said if you're in some difficulty

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:25 PM

A fine collection of country expressions.

Regards,


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: redhorse
Date: 05 Oct 03 - 05:15 PM

Two from my late Mum

When standing (visually) in the way:"You make a better door than a Window"
.
When leaving a door open: "Were you born in Bromyard?". Maybe someone from Worcestershire/Herefordshire area can explain it but I can't

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Zelda B.
Date: 05 Oct 03 - 03:14 PM

I once asked a woman from Oklahoma what things her family used to say ...
"I'm gonna ride you bug huntin'!" ...when the kids got into trouble. Also.."What in cats hair is going on over there?!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Oct 03 - 08:31 AM

I live in Blackness Avenue in Dundee, right next to Hawkhill. That's wierd! I'll have to ask about that one. My boyfriend has taken to using Numpty a lot reciently.
aaaah scottish, what a wonderful language!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,jan glasgow
Date: 05 Oct 03 - 07:49 AM

read with interest - here's a few scottish ones!

"Yer on plums" you've got no chance!
"as black as the earl of hell's waistcoat" filthy.
"a face like a panfull of fried arseholes" ugly.
"giraffe stew and hamster sauce" response to menu questioning.
"you room's a booroch" it's a mess.
"in a guddle"   in a mess.
"och, stop yer fashin!" stop your fretting.
"were you born stupid, or did you take lessons?" self evident.
"ya numpty!" you idiot!
"shut yer coupon" and other directives, where coupon means face.
"it's ben the hoose" it's in the other room.

and one I still use even though the street names refer to Dundee and I now live in Glasgow...
"it's up the Hackie ( ie the Hawkhill area) doon the Blackie (ie the Blackness road area) first stop Birkie (a nearby village) then Turkey."

mixing east coast Scotland with west coast dialects/idioms makes for a rich vocabulary - and my teenagers are also fluent Gaelic speakers with their own developing repertoire!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: City Crow
Date: 05 Oct 03 - 03:27 AM

Well, roll me in honey and toss me to the lesbians. From my ol' uncle Ron.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: rich-joy
Date: 05 Oct 03 - 02:14 AM

Bert - where were you brought up?
Coz my great granny in West Aussie (but from the UK a coupla generations back) used to say to my Mum :
"up in Annie's room behind the clock"
in answer to her "where's such-and-such?" question.
She always assumed it'd been a family saying, coz she'd not come across it in other families or in books!!

Also, in answer to "what's that?" the standard reply was :
"a wigwam for a goose's bridle".

Cheers!
R-J

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Celeste
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 07:07 PM

"Were you born in a field?" or "Put wood in t'hole" When anyone left the door open.
"You're only happy when you're miserable" I seemed to cry a lot as a kid, I blame my big brother.
Whenever I was ill my Nan-nan would say she'd "put me in a bag, shake me around, and see what came out".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Deda
Date: 04 Oct 03 - 12:05 AM

The same grandmother Amos mentioned used to call anything ostentatious or overblown "too much of a muchness". And she taught me to play Canasta -- but I don't remember it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Ian
Date: 03 Oct 03 - 05:27 AM

My mother always claimed that I could fall into a bag of flour and come out BLACK.

Ian

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Amos
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 08:01 PM

My father's mum used to nod agreeably when someone was handing her a line, and her eyes would twinkle -- and she'd say "Ayuh! I hear ya talkin'!". A fine way to avoid agreeing with someone.

A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 06:47 PM

My step-father used to mention (when perhaps apologizing) that he'd had good intentions--"But you know what kind of paving blocks those are!"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Suzanne B.
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 06:29 PM

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Suzanne B.
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 06:18 PM

"You'll get your reward in heaven"
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
"If it was a bear it would've bit you"
   (Or if it was a snake it would have bit you")
Mom also went to hell in a handbasket, but usually only if she
was having sour cream on her baked potato - if she had both butter
and sour cream on her baked potato, she just went straight to hell.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 03:47 PM

Well that's a hell of a note
Or That's an Irish trick

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: HuwG
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 01:31 PM

A Rugby song variant of Brían's remembered ditty:

"When she was good, she was very, very good
And when she was bad, she was marvellous"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 10:21 AM

My stepfather, indulging in the "when I was a boy" syndrome that all the old folks seemed to enjoy, telling of how hard his childhood was, would say "For supper, we'd have breaded nothing."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Brían
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 08:26 AM

There's something I remember my Great uncle say to his daughter. My wife remembers her grandmother say it, too:

"There was a girl with a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was oh, so good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid!

Brían

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 08:21 AM

A Maine curse:

"May the bleeding piles forever haunt you,
And corns grow on your feet,
And crabs as big as lobsters crawl up your balls, and eat.
May the whole world dis own you until you're a nervous wreck,
Then may you fall through your own asshole,
And break your fucking neck."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 02:48 AM

A fellow camp counselor in Wisconsin used to tell a story about John Jacob Schmidt, who was "rough and tough and hard to bluff and used to many hardships." I swear I've heard that "rough and tough and hard to bluff" phrase in other situations, but I haven't found anything on the history of the phrase. Heck, I even started a thread on it a few years back. If anybody can tell me more about the phrase, please post in that thread.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 02:45 AM

I'm pretty sure my Mother didn't listen to Aerosmith, Jim, so I suppose it must have been from George Formby.
Thanks for the info.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:33 AM

Re: "It isn't the cough that carries you off; it's the coffin they carry you off in."

One site refers to it as an Ogden Nash poem.

Aerosmith used that line in a song, but I'm sure that's not the song you were thinking of!

http://www.georgeformby.co.uk/gf_senior/report.htm
says it's a joke (not a song) that George Formby, Sr., used when he performed while suffering from tuberculosis!

http://home.att.net/~shannon718/poems/lim4.html
gives it as a limerick:

There once was an eccentric old boffin,
Who remarked, in a fine fit of coughing:
"It isn't the cough
That carries you off,
But the coffin they carry you off in."

I couldn't find any site that refers to it as a line from a music hall song.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 10:50 PM

I remember it C-flat, it was of common usage in our family, but just the lines you posted. Also remember, from the same person (from Bolton)

It ain't the 'eavy 'aulin'
That 'urts the 'orses 'ooves
Its the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer,
On the 'ard 'ighway.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Bman
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 06:54 PM

From my high school geometry teacher: I see, said the blind carpenter, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 04:11 PM

It would be interesting to find the rest of the song. A quick "google" doesn't seem to shed any light. I wonder if anyone else remembers it?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Snuffy
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 01:07 PM

That's an old music hall song, C-Flat. I remember hearing Alan Breeze sing it many times on the Billy Cotton Bandshow back in the 50s and 60s.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 30 Sep 03 - 02:38 AM

One of my Mothers' favourite sayings everytime she saw a funeral,
"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in!"


No idea what for!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Bassic
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 09:36 AM

As I child I seemed to spend endless hours in the back of a car going to "the coast", the usual responces to my pleadings of, "are we there yet?" were.........

Its just round that corner,

Its just over that hill,

First one to see the sea gets an ice cream

I told you to got before we left!!

OK, everyone out and push!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 29 Sep 03 - 08:58 AM

To a kid with his finger up his nose............
"Pick us a winner for the 3.30!"
or
"Mind you don't pick the lining from your cap!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 11:59 PM

From my Grandma...Lands o' Goshen!

Something was "chocker block" if it was full to the brim.

Things were done quickly in "two shakes of a lambs tail"

If you were stupid you were "as thick as two short planks" or better yet, "if brains were gunpowder, that kid wouldn't have enough to blow his nose."

A kid with a cold's nose was so full there was no room for his finger.

and you were always warned not to "cut off your nose to spite your face".

When your dancin' with your honey
and your nose is sorta runny
and you think its kinda funny
well its not.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: LadyJean
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 11:43 PM

Dad would say, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." But I'm still wishing.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Brían
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 10:39 PM

A couple fom my dad:

"What's for supper, dad?"-
"Bread and go with it."

"Off like a turd of hurdles".

One line an elderly woman told me when i figured out how to turn on an electric sander when I was sanding the floor in an apartment house:

"There, dear. Now you're cooking with gas."

Brían

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Forsh
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 02:27 PM

Many a mickle meks a muckle, (When given just a penny for reward)
Muckle beeng border land dialect for Large as in Muckle geet clart
(geet= great, clart= dirt/lump of mud, clarty= mucky/muddy etc)

and from my step dad, a value judgement: You're about as much use as a one legged criple at an arse-kicking contest!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: JennyO
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 02:05 PM

"Where are you going, grandpa?" - "There and back to see how far it is." or "To see a man about a dog."

"Every horse to his own nosebag, said the old man as he kissed his cow." (my dad)

"What are we having for dinner mum?" "Pigs' didders (no idea what they are) on toast and duck under the table." or "Fresh air on toast."

My grandfather's favourite expression of surprise was "Great everlasting hambone!"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 01:47 PM

From Hardi, a childhood memory of Grandpa Cleve--

Shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one gets fuller the fastest.

From my memory-- in response to a promise to deliver on something expected: "Yeah, and Christmas is coming."

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 01:24 PM

The IRA's onion thing was specific to my sister and I. it was a version of 1billion green bottles really!
In Basildon in Essex there is a cooling tower which looks like a giant Onion. It is known locally as "The onion" My sister and I rather liked the Onion bit and added IRA for some reason I have now forgotten.
When driving through Basildon we will still chant when we can see it. It drives my mother up the wall :-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: tuggy mac
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 05:35 AM

a fac like a bulldog chewing a wasp!(hornet to our american pals!)


And.

Also

He was shivering like a whippet taking a stif Crap!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Red and White Rabbit
Date: 26 Sep 03 - 02:41 AM

my mother's favourite saying was

" you'll die after it" I spent many a sleepless night worrying about not waking up eventually I asked her what she meant and was told
" well you cant die before it if its already happened can you?"

another favourite was
" if you dont eat your dinner you cant have any pudding" when my eldestwas about three I tried this one on him he just replied " if I eat all my dinner I wont have rom for any pudding!"

My maths teacher ( Mr Smart) when trying to teach my algebra spent a year saying if I have ten oranges and 3 apples what do I get - and clipping me round the ear for replies such as a fruit slad!

I had another teacher who is mudcatter who used to say 'as the actress said to te bishop....'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: LadyJean
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 11:50 PM

What are we going to do today?
Stand on our head in the butterdish.
(Mother had degenerative arthritis, so it wouldn't have been easy for her.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Edmund
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 09:10 PM

He calls someone a BLIVIT.
I ask "What's a BLIVIT?"
He sais "Ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag"

He sais "You think you're a great wit, like so many Irish, but you're only half Irish, so you know what that makes you."

Edmund

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 08:03 PM

Open Mike, my mother also used "Good night NURSE!" in Minnesota in the late 30s and the 40s. I would more-or-less echo back, "Good NIGHT, Nurse!"

If one of the kids dropped a piece of food on the kitchen floor, and didn't want to eat it because "It's DURRRRRR-ty!", my grandmother would assure us that "You gotta eat your peck of dirt before you die!"

Dave Oesterreich