I was listening to a Radio 4 programme last night called Th quotation game or similar and it started me thinking (that's a first, I hear you say!!)
They were talking about the origin of phrases or sayings like 'as bold as brass' etc. And then I started to think of some of the expressions and such like that we all grow up with and think normal but which other people from other regions don't often understand.
Stuff like 'he's noy as green as he's cabbage looking' and others.
We're from all parts of the country so what experessions have you got and what do they mean (if you know)?
Just thought of another thread topic too.... bye for now..
RB
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Up here in the wilds of Brum they don't bear grudges because they know that "Wot goos around, cooms around". On the other hand, my husband used to get terribly confused when I told him I was going out to get the messages then came home laden with carrier bags and asked him to put the messages past. Scottish people will understand.
And my Gran used to say something along the lines of "Fair bring yer arse to yer elbows" to describe particularly sour things. It's a visual thing.
'Hotter than the hob of hell'
'Every cripple has there own way of walking'
'There's a match that will strike' (she didn't realise that it would blow out as well)....
My Auntie Violet is of the same generation and one night after a family party she and ex mother in law did a joint effort..
Auntie Vi: 'It's 4am in the morning...'
Ex mother in law joined in to finish it off: 'and not a baby in the house is washed'
'Beef to the heel of Mullingar heffer'...something about being fat...never quite worked that one out!
Oh and last one, on asking directions from a very drunk driver in Ireland, he said,
'Lord, bless, save us and preserve us tonight,' laughed out loud and then replied, 'I haven't a clue'
Also there's a service station down from me that has the sign 'ye may gang far and find faur waur' - I think I spelt that right!!
I'll email you offline.
Gillian,
What is a 'fly' then??
Why fly then?
not too sure really
...as rough as ten bears!
A friend of mine's Irish mother used to comment on very bad weather, "I chuck a bucket of water out in this!"
As they say where I come from, "there's nowt s'queer as folk!"
I didn't come to the UK until I was 12 so my granny's expressions would mean very little to you. Her main legacy to me is my inability to sit on a public toilet seat without first covering it with loo paper.
Learning English was a confusing business: a friend of a friend got a new bike which had 'fallen off the back of a lorry'. I was amazed there were no scratches on it; didn't the lorry driver notice? Etc. Doh!
Fingers quicker than brain.
Come to think of it only my legs are slower!
"Face like a bag of elbows"
To describe a poorly made cup of tea
"That tea's so weak its almost a fortnight"
Use them at your peril
Laura... That was grandad's name
How about:
Face like a smacked arse
face like a bag of spanners
...bag of ferrets
she looks like a bulldog chewing a wasp.
Face lake a smacked @rse
Face like a smacked @rse
Blood and stomach pills! Blood and sand!
Hell's teeth! Hell's t*ts!
Tha Grand fayther mooved in sum reet queer circles, tha noz!
"He's so greedy he wouldn't breathe out if he didn't have to".
Also, "He's so tight you couldn't get a razor blade between the cheeks of his Ar*e"
Finally, " He couldn't spend Xmas. "
however, if a guest ( ie me) ate well:-
"he's better to keep for a week than a fortnight"
Tight as a duck's a**e
"If ye wiz chocolate ye'd eat yirsel'" as a response to excessive self-congratulation.
"Better an empty hoose than a bad tinnant" following a burp or a fart.
"As thick in the heid as the lippiachanty" was the slightly ruder local version of the nationally understood "two short planks" version (which I have personally never understood - what has the shortness of the planks got to do with their thickness?"
My Irish flatmate at university went to the shoe shop to buy "A pair of shoes, they're not for wearing".
Rough as a teddy bears bum
On that theme again - "couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery".
Going "ben the hoose" means going from one room to another, usually from the kitchen to the sitting room, as "in take yer cuppie (cup of tea) ben the hoose".
The East Coast has it's own language - the best one I've heard is "Sma' beefies".
Anyone like to hazard a guess?
Small something.... breasts??
How about 'flat as a witched t*t?
How many witches have 'they' met.
Cold as charity..
Brass monkeys ... now everyone knows that one.
Or a version of that one ' it was so cold, I passed a brass monkey looking for a welder'!!!
'Hunger is a great sauce'
I'm so hungry 'I could eat a scabby child'
and my own particular favourite about tea which had been brewed/stewed/mashed (whole new thread there) too long
'You could trot a mouse on it'
SR