Folklore: Old sayings from childhood

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 07:58 AM

If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous.
Did your mother have any kids that lived?


Some of the more modern ones that my mother never would have yelled at another driver;
YOU DRIVE LIKE OLD PEOPLE SCREW.
and when the car ahead of you just sits there on a green light;
IT DON'T GET ANY GREENER.

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:05 AM

Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth!
Put his brain in a crow and it'd fly backwards!
I'll spank you so hard your little bottom won't hold shucks!

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:10 AM

I find it fascinating that parents world-wide seem to use the same sayings.

Some sort of parental telepathy, perhaps? Or just response to similar circumstances?

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Geordie
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:16 AM

We Can't afford the water, Have a dot myra(Quick wash behind the ears). Don't go all Gallagher on me .(Don't go foolish). There are ducks in the pond.(Something is afoot) Her man's all diluted(Drunk)You'll Get what Paddy shot at.(I was never quite sure of this, but in our house it meant"Nothing". Cobble up yer ounds (Look after your children.) Drop your oars...(Be still). Lots more but these are ones I have seldom heard outside my own family. Anyone else familiar with any of these ?

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: DMcG
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:24 AM

One of my mother's favourites was:

If you can't fight, wear a big hat.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:38 AM

Did anyone else have to put up with what "the monkey said"

If complaining about a minor matter: "Hard lines...as the monkey said when he sat on the railway"

When impatient about something: "It won't be long now...as the monkey said when he cut off his tail"

Also "It'll be better before you get married" said of a minor injury

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:51 AM

They were passing out brains, but she thought they said trains, so she asked for a slow one.

.... thinks her shit comes wrapped in plastic bags.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:53 AM

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Don't saw sawdust. A sandwich short of a picnic. Don't gild the Lily. Your sailin on with the wrong wind.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: GUEST,Geordie.
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 08:58 AM

You're gonna have someones eye out with that! Shiver me timbers. What yer need is a fair lug-winder(a smack)

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:02 AM

Now see what you did. (said by the instigator)

Someone's gonna get hurt.

Be careful! You'll fall down and hurt yourself!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: sian, west wales
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:14 AM

I forgot "a lick and a promise" which was basically a quick spit-wash with a hanky.

sian

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:16 AM

Child. "....but I thought it would be OK"

Parent. "Well, you know what thought did!...followed the dustcart 'cause he thought it was a wedding!"

Another family favourite is "Lean dogs for long hunts!"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:17 AM

Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do or do without.

...since Noah was a bow hook. - Used to indicate a length of time such as how long someone had been a friend. I've never heard this one used by anyone but my father, a Navy man. For the less-than-nautical, a bow hook is the title of the person who mans the boat hook, a long pole with a brass hook on the end used to hold a boat alongside, to push off from a dock or other boat, or to snatch buoys and lines from the water.

Hotter than a two-dollar pistol...

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:54 AM

My Grandmother to an unnamed, but known Mudcatter, when he was being something less than what she expected:

I will send ye back to Jesus, ... and yer Mother, God bless her, will make another just like ye tomorrow"

Larry Cope of Macon, GA, a fellow serviceman, when he saw something that fascinated him:

That is slicker'n hot chicken fat on a stuck door knob"

Same Larry Cope when asked how he was doing:

Jes' fine as frog hair..

Our own Kendal Morse, when asked if he had many relatives in his hometown:

Hell, I got more relatives than a 30 year old rabbit...

His delivery was so dry and instantaneous that Marum and I just fell out and laughed so hard we had tears running down our faces.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 10:06 AM

from my dad, who had dozens:

"it'll feel better when it quits hurtin'" (to solace small children with minor injuries)
to someone who has dripped gravy, jelly..etc on their shirt "You look good in everything you eat"

on the burdens of life: "if you were carrying all the feathers you could carry, could you carry one more?"

"shake it more than twice, and you're playing with it"

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

Cold as a well diggers ass

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Peg
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 11:20 AM

I recognize a lot of these, especially the ones that promise    corporal punishment...

Mom was fond of the "people in hell want ice water" one. She also would say, when we crabbed about dinner, "One of these days I'll put a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter on the table." Once   when I accused her of saying that a lot but never doing it I got smecked...kids got smacked a lot more in those days, yes? Or was it just my family?

"Eat your (broccoli, squash, peas, lima beans etc.)! There's children starving in India!"

"She's like a fart in a windstorm." (My mom still says this about me, meaning who knows where I am at any given moment.

"He thinks his shit don't stink."

"You've got good taste." (when picking out the most expensive item on the clothes rack when shopping for back to school).


"She's so stuck on herself."

Kid: "She started it!"
Sibling: "No,   HE started it!"
Parent (usually Mom): "I'm gonna FINISH it!"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 11:23 AM

Champagne taste, beer pocket.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 11:50 AM

From my dad ...


"You gotta tongue longer than a Mountie's boot".

"If shoes were clues you'd be walking on your knees".

"Just a minute ... I'll start spittin wooden nickels".


And from my mom ...


"If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything".

"Let's not, and say we did".

"GO TO YOUR ROOM AND SHUT THE DOOR!"


And here's one we used to chant that I haven't heard in a long time ...

"Whistle while you work
Hitler was a jerk
Mussolini bit his weenie
Now it doesn't work".


Okay, th th th that's all folks!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 11:53 AM

Since Hector was a pup. (As in a longtime activity) I have no idea of what it means. Who was Hector?

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Midchuck
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 12:50 PM

From a friend of mine many years ago:

On seeing a female hitchhiker: "Don't stop - she's uglier than Death takin' a shit!"

Of his wife: "Don't listen to her, she's crazier than a shithouse rat!"

From one of the late H. Allen Smith's books:

"She smelt like eight wet rams."

"That woman was so tall she could stand flat-footed and piss in the radiator of a Chevy pickup."

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Big Mick
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 01:20 PM

"That boy stinks like a wet Angora goat"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 01:40 PM

My mother refering to the people from the new, private housing estate nearby.............."They're all kippers an' curtains, that lot!" Meaning behind the lace curtains and smart exteriors they were as poor as us, eating kippers (inexpensive then) for dinner.


Another of mothers.........
"What's for tea?"
"Bread and pull-it!"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Allan C.
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 01:43 PM

Ebbie, I have always heard it as, "Since Heck was a pup." I found a reference to its use in that form by Sinclair Lewis in "Babbitt" written in 1922 (see line 60.) I always assumed it was a euphemism for the Devil; but I can't say for certain.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: PageOfCups
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:13 PM

Followup to any apology: "'Sorry' don't pay the rent!"

From Grandpa: "Good, better best
               Never let it rest
               'Til the good is better
               And the better is best."

PoC

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: VoxFox
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:43 PM

Mum's favorite was, "Lie down and I'll fan you with a kipper!" In other words, Do it yourself.    Another one was, " Smile for goodness sake, you've got a face like a wet weekend!" And my favorite is, "Do I look like a Nubian slave to you?"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: curmudgeon
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:49 PM

Doesn't anyone read the classics anymore? Hector, a prince of Troy was killed by Achilles during the seige of that city.

A folk reference from "Gilderoy" --

"His relics they were more esteemed then Hector's were of Troy"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:41 PM

Keep it up till one of ya gets hurt!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:43 PM

I'll kick yore ass so far up between yer teeth, yuh'll have to smile to take a shit!

~Hardi Again

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: C-flat
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 02:40 AM

or "I'll knock your teeth so far down your throat you'll have to stick a toothbrush up your arse to clean 'em!"
Actually, my mother never said that to me!

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: lady penelope
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 03:02 PM

Ah yes there are many of my mother's favourites here.

Please imagine a glaswegian accent when reading the following......

"Don't care was made to care"
"I want doesn't get"
"It's far off your backside, you won't sit on it" ( referring to minor injuries. I was never in the room when any one had a sore bum so I don't know what happened then......)
"Mocking's catching" (in answer to your declaring one had a sore throat and couln't go to school sort of thing)
"Get a grip of your knickers" ( pull yourself together )
"I could eat the snibs off the windows" ( I'm dreadfully hungry )
When complaing you had to go out and it was raining "Ach you're neither sugar nor salt you won't melt"
"Between you me and the wallpaper"
"If you do that one more time I'll batter yer melt in"
"Little jugs have big ears" (Meaning you weren't to say certain things as very young children were present)
"If you point that finger at me again I'll bite it off"

I could go on and on and on....

TTFN Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Sonnet
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 04:46 PM

"Shit wi'sugar on" was Grandma's reply to "what's for dinner?" I too survived childhood without catching kingcough, and never did manage to "have somebody's eye out with that..."

JMcS

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: RangerSteve
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 05:02 PM

In response to any useless information: That and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee. (OK, it was 25cents when I first heard it, but you have to adjust for inflation).

a variation on one mentioned above: When they passed out brains, he thought they said "trains", so he asked for HO scale.

When they passed out looks, he thought they said "Books" so he said "GIve me a funny one".

From a Tennessee friend concerning speed: Faster than you can pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Bert
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 10:16 PM

You smell like a Turkish wrestler's jock strap.
In and out like a fart in a colander.
He's got duck's disease (small man's disease)
and said of a small snack to keep you ging until dinner is ready "that'll keep the rats from gnawing"

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 10:38 PM

Looks like death eating a cracker (bisquit to you Brits)
I'll hit you so hard, when you come to, your clothes will be out of style.
Ther's an Aborigine in the biomass heap.(Originally, there is a nigger in the woodpile)
Hotter than a whore's dream
Colder than a misers heart

Stunk like a dog's laundry.

I always assumed that Hector was one of the characters in the Iliad too.

One old guy used to say "Since Christ was a cowboy" never made any sense to me, never use it myself.
He's tougher than Japanese arithmetic.
If wishes were horses beggers would ride.

I'll kick your ass 'til your nose bleeds. Mothers never say this, some fathers do.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Bert
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 10:48 PM

I was doing that when you were running 'round eating bread and jam with the arse out of your trousers.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 11:07 PM

Smells worse than all the night soil in China.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: annamill
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 12:30 AM

When asked the price of something, my Dad would reply "a buck three eighty". I have no idea what it meant.

When referring to the time, I remember kids saying

"half past cows ass, a quarter to his balls"...which again makes no sense.

I had a strange upbringing...

Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Metchosin
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:02 AM

Because we never had watches when we were kids, if anyone asked us the time, it was always "one hair past a freckle".

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: lady penelope
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 02:41 PM

Oh I forgot

"Your head's full of chewed bread" ( implying that someone was stupid)

TTFN Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Allan C.
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 02:46 PM

Annamill, on the old Hee-Haw show they often used "a dollar two ninety-eight" as a price for almost anything. (Not that I ever watched the show - except, perhaps, for the time that Kendall Morse was on it.)

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 07:43 PM

I was on Hee Haw?

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 07:53 PM

"There's everything in that attic from a baby fart to a clap of thunder".

I have stuff strewn from Hell to Hackney.

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Deckman
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 09:53 PM

"I was busier than a one armed trapper sackin' wildcats!" Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Cruiser
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 09:59 PM

I double-dog dare ya!

My uncle saying get up, "you're burning daylight" when it was still dark and I had to wrangle horses during winter hunting camp in Colorado.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Forsh
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 02:27 PM

Honi soit que mal e pense (I think)
Where there's life theres hop ... !
y'wee buggerohellye!
hadawa'n'shite man
you'll get your reward in heaven
take these bottles back to the offie..

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 03:16 PM

virtue is its own reward.
Pennies make dollars
Mend and make do.

"You can'r wear your good clothes out to play, you'll switch them out and get them all daubbed up."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Celtaddict
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 06:55 PM

Of chewing with the mouth open: "You sound like a pig eating coal."
"Slicker than a snotty doorknob." (An obstetrician I knew used to say that about deliveries.)

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: Celtaddict
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:01 PM

Of a big man: "He was made when meat was cheap."
In our family we used a number of stock answers. If a kid asked, "When ...?" (when do we eat? when will be there? when will I get my turn? whatever) the answer was "Tuesday." If a kid asked, "Where is my ...?" (baseball glove, shoe, homework, jacket, whatever the kid should have been responsible for and no one else even likely to know) the answer was, "It was delicious."

Subject: RE: BS: Old sayings from childhood
From: kendall
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:09 PM

In the service, if you ask where something is, the answer is likely to be, "If it was up your ass you'd know."