Folklore: Old sayings from childhood

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: GUEST,Suzanne B.
Date: 02 Oct 03 - 06:29 PM

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:25 PM

A fine collection of country expressions.

Regards,


A

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Metchosin
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 01:09 AM

which reminds me of some others:

an extension to the blind man-
"I see said the blind man, as he picked up the hammer and saw."

"Nobody here but us chickens"

"That'll put hair on your chest" - usually said about burnt toast or a roasted wiener inadvertantly dropped in a fire.

"I'm the king of the castle and your the dirty rascal" - a school yard taunt that was commonly heard from any suitable piece of higher ground

"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
So Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he."

"Liar, liar pants on fire
Nose as long as a telephone wire."

Also overheard in adult's conversations, but not understood by me at the time was the comment:

"Her heels are round" or conversely, "Her heels are square", depending on how someone judged a female's sexual behavior. I did get the general idea that it was considered better to have square heels than round ones and worried for quite awhile, when upon close examination, I perceived that that part of my anatomy was decidedly not square.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: John Minear
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 09:10 AM

From my Mother:

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Don't be a dog in a manger.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Little dog smells his own.
The longest way round is the shortest way home.
All the way around Robin Hood's barn.
They stumble who run fast, make haste slowly.
First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game.
You're a pain but I can't see through you.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
Do unto others....
   T.O.M.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: tarheel
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 10:58 AM

and one i'll never forget!..."you CAN'T go home again!"....how true it was!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: beetle cat
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:59 AM

"TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!"
-Mom

"AND NOW ITS TIME TO SAY GOODNIGHT TO ALL MY FUNNY FRIENDS"
-Dad

"ITS A FREE WORLD!"
-Kids

"ITS A FREE COUNTRY!"
-Pollitically correct kids

"QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS; INTELLEGENT OR OTHERWISE?"
- 7th grade social studies teacher at the end of every class.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 03:20 PM

If you kids (don't stop that, don't get this room cleaned up, don't eat your deep fried fat, whatever...) I'll (knock you into next week, blister your butts so you won't sit for a month, whack you so hard your brains'll rattle for a week).

Nobody ever carried these threats out, however....

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 10:15 PM

The longer response to "hey": "Straw is cheaper, grass is free; horses and cattle eat all three".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: frogprince
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 10:48 PM

Nobody else? Our farm was just a couple of miles from the nearest village, and if we weren't running machinery we would hear the noon and six pm whistles from the water tower. Like as not one of my folks would say, "Six o'clock and the whistle blew, and out of the boxcar the hobo flew, and said,'If I had some ham, I'd have some ham and eggs, if I had some eggs'"..

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: JennyO
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 06:42 AM

"You'd lose your head if it wasn't screwed on!" (when we couldn't find something)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: freda underhill
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 07:07 AM

wait till your father gets home...

(sometime later) where's that bloody man?

(before dinner) - loud call out the back yard .. "come and get it!"

..put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Is that so?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,KSUAVE236
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 11:51 PM

that's a cocker(referring to something fascinating) my grand father always used to say.r.i.p. papa

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: semi-submersible
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 06:24 AM

"By the skin of your teeth" you "just squeaked by" whatever "close shave" confronted you.

"Good night, nurse!" when much startled (putting emphasis on "nurse" as described earlier) is one my Manitoba-born Grandmother also used.

"Wouldn't that frost you!" expressed Grandmother's frustration. Somehow I have an impression a long form might have existed, something like "Wouldn't that frost your grandmother's preserves" or her "eyebrows," but I think that version (or versions) came through someone else.

"Since Heck was a pup" meant an indefinite span of years. I asked Grandmother about it once, and she didn't know what "heck" meant here. Later I ran across this in a book of word and phrase origins which alleged that Hector was a common name given to big dogs (after the Greek hero, I assume).

My mother (the Northwest-coast/Irish-American side of the family) rarely used "a coon's age" to mean a long time. This still has a literal meaning, I guess. When I was a child, we planted corn in our garden, until the racoons discovered it to be edible. Then each year they would always knock it down long before the cobs matured. We had to give up growing it. We tried again a few years later, but no use. Maybe fifteen years later, other people started growing corn again nearby - with no problems! I suppose there were no living coons in the neighbourhood who knew how to exploit standing corn.

"When I was a boy" was used as a stereotyped phrase by my mother, "tongue in cheek" (i.e. jokingly).

"H-E-two-sticks" was her mother (my Grandma)'s euphemisim for the exclamation invoking regions infernal. Grandma also used the spoonerism "a mell of a Hess," but not as much after the embarrassing moment when she accidentally inverted it back to the original while speaking with a friend who did not use profanities.

"Were you born in a barn?" when a door was left open, was used on both sides of my family. I was startled to hear the same phrase, from my late husband's Newfoundland family, ending with "born in a boat."

"On [something or someone] like ducks on a June bug" describes a spontaneous pack attack.

"If it was a bear it would bite you." (I don't recall the grammatically correct "were" being used in this phrase, but my memory may be at fault.)

"If the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise"
"Slow as molasses in January"
"Old as Methuselah" [Biblical reference]
"That joke has whiskers on it."

A bad mess looked "like a dog's breakfast" or "like the wreck of the Hesperus" [Longfellow poem] to Grandmother
A very dishevelled person might also look like the wreck of the Hesperus, or "like the Witch of Endor." [Biblical reference]
"Happy as a clam (at high tide)": Mom made a song, "Sam the Clam" from this saying.
"Three sheets to the wind" was about as drunk as a person could get and still be ambulatory. I think I've heard it with "two sheets" once. "Tight as a boiled owl" is another I may have heard, or only read.

"A real gully-washer and trash-mover" (very heavy rain) is a phrase that just shouts of origins in a more arid landscape. Here on the rural Wet Coast, moist earth minimises surface runoff. Vegetation grows so fast that discarded trash gets grown over instead.

Chinook jargon and other loanwords, and popular song or other phrases, especially from Pogo (Walt Kelly's comic strip) also formed parts of my family's language. Rowrbazzle!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: banjoman
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 07:13 AM

Go and see what time it is on the Liver Clock

Take a walk along New Brighton Pier till your hat floats

Get me some steel wool and I'll knit you a kettle

The rags of his arse are battering his brains out

Who does she think she is? Lady Muck?

Go and play tick on the East Lancs Road

The only good thing that ever came from manchester was the East Lancs Road to Liverpool

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Popeye
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 11:09 PM

My Grandmother from Northern Ontario would use this insult once in a while. "She couldn't cook shit for a tramp."

She left a waiter slack-jawed speechless once when he asked her if she was hungry. She replied " I could eat the arse out of a skunk."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Vin2
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 08:41 AM

'Don't cry, you'll sell up'
'Mam, where's me dad', 'In the oven with the meat'
'This day, the next, then fireworks'
'Come ere, while i 'it yer'
'Where yer goin dad', 'There and back to see 'owe far it is'
'It's all me eye and Tommy Martin'
'Eee, tis a sad day when yer learn nowt'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 12:18 PM

My neighbor, when excited would say, "Jesus Christ on a hardwood ridge."

Never made any sense to me.
My Father used to say, "Well, shit a goddamn."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 06:28 PM

"It won't show on a galloping horse" (said if something is slightly wrong with the way you look -- a small spot on your shirt, say).

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 06:38 PM

"What's for tea?" "Cat's legs and apple pie."
- from my father (born in 1913), who heard it from his mother.

And if you said "don't care", my mother would come back with

"Don't Care was made to care,
Don't Care was hung.
Don't Care was put in the pot
And boiled till he was done."

(Even as quite a small child I thought 'Don't Care' was an unlikely name.)

My mother (born 1921) also had a handkerchief-figure rhyme which she'd got from her father, who was a devout member of the Plymouth Brethren. The hanky-man was supposed to be a monk, and the rhyme went:

"Dearly beloved brethren, is it not a sin
To eat new potatoes and throw away the skin?
The skin feeds the pigs, the pigs feed you.
Dearly beloved brethren, is it not true?"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old sayings from childhood
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 07:16 PM

200