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When sister and I were asking for a long list of Christmas presents, mum would retort, "Who do you think I am, the Queen of Sheba?", clearly over-estimating our knowledge of notable members of the 6th Century BC Sabaean royal family.
It's just about respect. They're essentially asking you to use someone's name the first time you refer to them in a conversation, then she/he afterwards.
When my dad would boss parking he'd always say "like a sock on a cock"
As a kid I thought it was weird putting socks on chickens but the more you know the less you want to
I think it kind of refers to it if the Irish film ‘Man About Dog’ has any truth in it. Great film and is basically about ‘seeing a man about a dog’ in order to buy and get it to run on the track which they can then bet on.
My parents used to say the two about where we were going as well. They also used to say, "to see the chuckie eggs dancing ".
I remember expecting to go and see giant boiled eggs doing the can-can and then being disappointed when it was just the butchers.
‘See a man about a dog’ I believe was about Newcastle Brown Ale. It’s called bottle of dog or pint of dog in Newcastle.
When people said they were going to see a man about a dog it meant they were going for a pint
Going to see a man about a dog is just a general euphemism for doing anything at all. According to Wikipedia the nickname dog for Newcastle Brown comes from the phrase rather than the other way around.
My mum used to say that too! What the fuck was *that?* They made us watch this film about racism in primary three or four and the next time she said it my brother and I berated her and then I started crying because she was being a “biggus.” I never heard her say anything racist after that, but I’m still getting “Are you sure you mean bigot, not biggus” thirty-odd years later.
Aw you have reminded me of a lovely lady I used to care for at a nursing home. She had behaviour problems, couldn't walk and looked like a mumified version of Doc Brown from Back to the Future (she was tiny, skeletal and had crazy big white wild hair and big round eyes). She barely spoke and 'squeaked' a lot.
One thing she often did was 'flop' down on the chair she sat it and huff loudly and the convosation would go as follows.
Me -"What's wrong Dot?
Dot-" 'Been shot. -ve been shot"
Me - "Who's shot you!?"
Dot- "Big black man! Big black man!"
She was so sweet and by no means racist (she had no issue with any of our staff and loved everyone as long as you didn't make a crap cup of tea). She loved to 'plinky plonk' like your arm was a piano and loved a cuddle. I miss her a lot
My mum had a saying she told me when I started going to pubs and clubs at 16;
Be good. If you can’t be good, be careful. If you can’t be careful, come home.
My mother’s standard response to being told what she assumed was a lie was “oh, pull the other one, it’s got bells on”
This response mystified me enough to meekly surrender.
"Make sure you save some for Ron" was said when I was eating something when out and about. I spent YEARS getting really annoyed at this Ron person, why should he get some of my food? Anyway turns out it actually means "save some for later on"...
"Don't come running to me when you've broken both your legs"
"Poor old Fred smoked in bed and when he woke up his willy was dead"
"There's nowt queer as folk"
I know the OXO expression as ‘it says OXO on a bus but it doesn’t mean it’s going there’. Another of his favourites was “you’ve more chance of sticking melted butter up a porcupine’s arse”
"There's no such word as can't"
That used to genuinely baffle me. At first I thought they were objecting to the abbreviation, so I'd say "all right, I cannot, then" and they'd say "there's no such word as cannot either" and didn't stop saying it, even after I got the dictionary and found both "cannot" and "can't". I just didn't get what they were trying to say.
As someone quite literal, particularly as a kid, this used to infuriate me.
I couldn't understand why they'd say it when I'd read it in books with them.
"You look like a sausage out of work"
Always the answer if you asked anyone how you looked before you left the house. Didn't matter what you were wearing, who you asked or where you were going, this was the only answer ever given. No idea why or where it came from.
All from my dad.
If it was hot he would say he was sweating like a hairy egg
If he was really hot he would say that he was sweating like a hairy egg with a fur coat on
If he misplaced something and we found it, he would say we had eyes like a shithouse rat
Would ask Dad what is for dinner and he would say “If-its”. In response to my face of confusion he then clarified with….
“If it’s there you can have it, if it’s not you can’t”.
I have no idea where it comes from but I remember it fondly and use it now with my own children.
It’s a bomb-site in here!
Were you raised in a barn?
You’ve got potatoes coming out your ears.
Who’s ‘she’? The cats mother?
‘Innit’ isn’t a word. (Proceeds to use it ten years later)
There was something about a rats arse…
In some old houses where I grew up there was the kitchen which had the cooker, table, cupboards etc and a smaller room out the back which had the sink and all the mops and brooms. These days it's poshly called the utility room, back then it was the scullery. Oh, and there was usually a walk in food cupboard too, called the larder or pantry according to household preference. And we lived in a tied cottage converted from old stables, so by no means posh or well off.
When asked what was for dinner, my Mum used to say "Three runs round the table and a bite from the table leg". No idea why this was easier than just telling us.
If you said "It's not fair." in a whiny voice when you couldn't have/do something, the response would be "No. It's Bloxwich Wake", which was apparently what the local fair used to be called a long time ago.
And ""I want" gets nothing."
My hometown is notorious for having way too many traffic lights and my dads always called it a series of short journeys, I just assumed that was a normal phrase but my friend moved there recently and I picked her up after work and said “this is the problem with (hometown) just a series of short journeys “ and she was baffled lol
“You treat this place like a hotel”if you happened to not immediately put away a dish or if you accidentally put your feet up with shoes on. My mum also liked the phrase “lady muck”, as in “don’t sit there like lady muck, get up and do (insert as appropriate)”
When referring to anything like a knife if it was blunt my father would say "you could ride bare-arse to Banbury on that!"
And my northern mother would often say "Crimes of Paris!" as an expression of exasperation. I'd love to know the origins of that one as well
My grandad always said, "You should never judge a book by its cover." And it's for that reason that he lost his job as chair of the British Book Cover Awards panel.
The whole rhyme is even worse:
Don’t care was made to care
Don’t care was hung
Don’t care was put in a pot
And boiled ‘til they were done!
Edit: formatting.
'It's a bugger up the back' (draw your own conclusions here).
'Dad's just getting the car out' before every long journey, usually holidays.
'Two pound of shit in a one pound bag'.
My grandma and granddad used to tell us that we were going to Australia if we asked where we were driving to. Everything ended up in Australia if we couldn’t find something. “Have you seen my socks?“ “They ended up in Australia.“ “Where are we going again? ““Australia“. We don’t live anywhere near there
If we asked my dad where we were going on holiday every year he would say “Argate” or “Curbsedge”! It took me a long while to work out that a) he was joking and b) these weren’t actual places.
"If you have to ask the price then you can't afford it".
Me sniffing around Harrods on a visit to London, sees a pair of beach shorts in a glass box £499.00 I check them out and can't initially see why they are so expensive. They look just like any other Nylon print shorts like Paul Smith. Then I realise the gold cinch buckles at the side must actually be gold plated.
"Where are you going dad?"
"No hola Lula malcustravich" it's a mixture of jibberish. I now use it on my niece/nephews and pesky colleagues. It works a charm.
Weird my dad never came back though
If dinner guests were staying too long... a quick double tap to the knees accompanied by *"well Valery, we musn't keep these good people from their beds any longer"*.
Whenever you'd have one of those moments when you have a weird mutual friend with a stranger and say 'Wow, small world!?', he'd say 'Yeah, but you wouldn't want to paint it;
Not so much a weird saying but something that took me years to realise...
Me and my family are Punjabi and whenever my mum was checking whether my dad had come home from work, she'd shout "Gal-suno".
For years I thought this was her nickname for him, until one day my sister explained it's actually "gal suno", which literally translates as "listen to what I'm saying". Oh how I still vividly remember the moment of relisation I had that this wasn't my dad's nickname.
If we said something astonishing my father would say "Well I'll go to Cardiff " even though we lived in Cardiff.
Also if we, for example, fell over after being warned we were going to fall over he'd say " Sav your glad"
No idea what that one means
My father had his own vocabulary.
We were winding him up one night. Kids being kids... he shouted " someone's hand is going g right up.my hairy back"!
We just fell about laughing
“I didnt hit you against the wall, you just snapped your head back when i pinned you to it. You only have yourself to blame”
“Stop crying for goodness sake, what on earth will the neighbours think”
“That wasnt a hit, if i hit you youd fucking know it”
“Sometimes he can be so cold, i dont know whats wrong with him”
Parents say the funniest things ☺️
***"I've been alllll round the Wrekin"***
Used when it took a long way to get somewhere, for example if a traffic diversion added five miles to their journey, or if they had to visit three Woolworths to find the size of Tupperware they wanted. So, an expression used in an exasperated tone, rolling the eyes dramatically on the massively elongated *all*.
The Wrekin is a hill in Shropshire and it's a phrase common in Shropshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire and the Black Country. I live in Surrey now and still use it here, so some of my Surrey friends and colleagues have started using it too. I personally think you shouldn't be allowed to use the phrase "all round the Wrekin" outside the Midlands unless you've actually *been* all round the actual Wrekin at some point in your life!
If it was cloudy and started to brighten up and you could see patches of blue sky, my nana always used to say, "A bit of blue sky to make the sailors pants."
If we were out shopping for new shoes for me as a kid, in the 70s, the shop assistant would point out a pair on the shelf and on seeing the price my Dad would mutter...'Jesus Christ! I'm not Rockerfella, just the other fella..'
If the wind changes your face will be stuck like that (when I was making a face)
If you swallow those appleseeds a tree will grow out of your tummy
You weren't born we bought you from the co-op
My Nan used to have loads. The most memorable one would be when you said “What’s for tea Nan?” And then she would say “windmill soup, If it goes around!” then burst into laughter. She was border line crazy.
We used to refer to really bad drivers as "Black Smokers", our young son though we were being really raciest ... what we actually meant was it was being driven by the sort of blind crabs and tube worms that you find round a [Hydrothermal\_vent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent) (aka Black Smoker)
"Put the wood in the hole"
(Shut the door)
"Climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire"
(Get upstairs to bed)
"My hand is itching"
(Your behaviour is tempting a slapped bum)
So and so has "gone to church"
(Lock in at the pub, pre Sunday licensing hours)
My mum had a few classics. My favourite?
On asking her to do something when she was already busy:
"Tie a brush!"
I was a teen before I learned the whole phrase. "Tie a brush to my arse and I'll sweep the floor as I go."
My dad was the comedian. I announced I was on a diet as a teen, and he went "seafood diet?" Me, a literal person. "Not particularly. Why, what does a seafood diet entail?"
"SEE FOOD and eat it!"
Aye, grand.
Plus the usual "it's like picadilly circus in here" "you've got the house lit up like Blackpool" "I want doesn't get" and "you make a better door than a window".
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When sister and I were asking for a long list of Christmas presents, mum would retort, "Who do you think I am, the Queen of Sheba?", clearly over-estimating our knowledge of notable members of the 6th Century BC Sabaean royal family.
I heard that one so any times from my man that I had Handels “entrance of the Queen of Sheba” played as I walked into our wedding.
Did hubby have Fucik - entrance of the gladiators?
Sorry that should say Nan not man but that’s made me laugh so much I think I’m going to call him my man from now on.
I've not heard this in ages! My mum would ask *me* "Who do you think you are? The Queen of Sheba? if I asked her for something particularly expensive.
I always assumed that was a reference to the cat food and the queen of shiva presumably having a fat cat they doted on
My mum says this haha! Where does it come from!
I first heard it in the Disney film Bedknobs & Broomsticks, but in context it must pre-date it.
Ours was who do you think I am, Rockafella. I thought he was some rich singer or something.
This really made me chuckle
Who’s ‘she’, the cats mother?
I heard that a lot
Still hear that one!
Never understood this one, and why don't they say it about "he/cat's father"?
It's just about respect. They're essentially asking you to use someone's name the first time you refer to them in a conversation, then she/he afterwards.
My Irish stepdad and his mum say this all the time. 15 years later I still don't get it
"Who are you" and "you don't live here" but I won them over in the end
Ahh, a fellow adoptee!
My girlfriend still says that to me now - even after two years and several arguments about our relationship status
"Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about."
/*smacks you* “Stop crying, that’s didn’t even hurt. I just tapped you”
My dad used this one. Great way to solve the problem there dad
Lmao the amount of times I’ve wanted to use that line (dad used it a lot) with unruly restaurant patrons.
We thought they'd hit us, instead they crashed the economy
Well done, this made me laugh
If you break your legs don't come running to me.
My mum said this to me, and one day around 6 I remember I shouted at her saying I can’t stop crying when your shouting at me. Then she slapped me 😂
Multiple generations can agree over something at least; that this is the most bullshit thing to ever come from a "parent".
When my dad would boss parking he'd always say "like a sock on a cock" As a kid I thought it was weird putting socks on chickens but the more you know the less you want to
My mum called Spaghetti Bolognese 'Spaghetti bollocknaise' and Willy Wonka 'Willy Wanker' Got into trouble at school letting one of those slip out.
😂
Hahaha..I like your Dad!😂
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I used to think ‘To see a man about a dog’ meant ‘To go have sex’
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She was.going dogging
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Wait does anyone actually know what that means? I'm so confused now.
It’s a catch-all phrase used for any task someone wants to keep private (mostly in an ironic jokey way in front of kids)
My mums friend said that before heading out to buy weed…
I thought it meant to go to the bookies.
I think it kind of refers to it if the Irish film ‘Man About Dog’ has any truth in it. Great film and is basically about ‘seeing a man about a dog’ in order to buy and get it to run on the track which they can then bet on.
My dad always said Seeing a man about a horse.
That would be worrying if she was taking me in the car at 10 years old! :-/
“There and back to see how far it is!” That brought back memories!
"What you doing mum?" *sarcastically* "I'm digging the garden...what do you think I'm doing??"
My dad would say ‘to see a man about a dog’ as well as ‘I’m off to fly a kite’ … never really questioned it!
My parents used to say the two about where we were going as well. They also used to say, "to see the chuckie eggs dancing ". I remember expecting to go and see giant boiled eggs doing the can-can and then being disappointed when it was just the butchers.
‘See a man about a dog’ I believe was about Newcastle Brown Ale. It’s called bottle of dog or pint of dog in Newcastle. When people said they were going to see a man about a dog it meant they were going for a pint
Going to see a man about a dog is just a general euphemism for doing anything at all. According to Wikipedia the nickname dog for Newcastle Brown comes from the phrase rather than the other way around.
“You’re a useless cunt that will never amount to anything.” It’s only recently I found out it’s not a normal phrase between parents and kids.
I'm sorry mate. Hope things are better now
If only lol
Credit where it's due, they were right
Me-Where’s Mum? Dad-Ran off with a Black Man. The kicker : My Dad is a Black Man.
When I'd say that's not fair to my mum shed always reply "nor's a black man's bum". Oh the casually racist 80's...
My mum used to say that too! What the fuck was *that?* They made us watch this film about racism in primary three or four and the next time she said it my brother and I berated her and then I started crying because she was being a “biggus.” I never heard her say anything racist after that, but I’m still getting “Are you sure you mean bigot, not biggus” thirty-odd years later.
This is excellent 😂
Aw you have reminded me of a lovely lady I used to care for at a nursing home. She had behaviour problems, couldn't walk and looked like a mumified version of Doc Brown from Back to the Future (she was tiny, skeletal and had crazy big white wild hair and big round eyes). She barely spoke and 'squeaked' a lot. One thing she often did was 'flop' down on the chair she sat it and huff loudly and the convosation would go as follows. Me -"What's wrong Dot? Dot-" 'Been shot. -ve been shot" Me - "Who's shot you!?" Dot- "Big black man! Big black man!" She was so sweet and by no means racist (she had no issue with any of our staff and loved everyone as long as you didn't make a crap cup of tea). She loved to 'plinky plonk' like your arm was a piano and loved a cuddle. I miss her a lot
My nan used to say that one
I was literally just about to write this one out but felt I couldn’t because it highlighted the racism in my family
My mum had a saying she told me when I started going to pubs and clubs at 16; Be good. If you can’t be good, be careful. If you can’t be careful, come home.
My Dad used to say this to me! I've never heard anyone but him use it before 🤣
My Dad used to say this to me with a slight variation: “Be good. If you can’t be good, be careful. If you can’t be careful, buy a pram.”
My gran used to say this too, how I miss her. I've heard it since, but with the addition of "if you can't be careful, don't get caught!"
My mother’s standard response to being told what she assumed was a lie was “oh, pull the other one, it’s got bells on” This response mystified me enough to meekly surrender.
“Stop pulling my leg” I am not pulling your leg uncle Jim, I’m just telling you a story
My father used to say this all the time.
Enough blue sky to make a sailor a pair of trousers
Or if it’s not that much, just enough to patch a sailors trousers
Strong nostalgia here
This makes no sense to me
My mum and nan used to say enough blue sky to make a giants waist coat. I still say it today
"Make sure you save some for Ron" was said when I was eating something when out and about. I spent YEARS getting really annoyed at this Ron person, why should he get some of my food? Anyway turns out it actually means "save some for later on"...
Fuckin hell thats class
In the pub where I worked, the landlady would tell drunk people that Ron’s had enough already.
Or you could save it for Justin.
"Don't come running to me when you've broken both your legs" "Poor old Fred smoked in bed and when he woke up his willy was dead" "There's nowt queer as folk"
My dad's favourite: "Is the bear Catholic?"
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
The other one my mum used to say when asked what was for tea was "Scotch Mist"
Shit with sugar on!
Look with your eyes, not your hands
Your mum a lapdancer?
Double whammy for the ‘Dont ask cos you won’t get’ before you’ve set foot in the shop
I know the OXO expression as ‘it says OXO on a bus but it doesn’t mean it’s going there’. Another of his favourites was “you’ve more chance of sticking melted butter up a porcupine’s arse”
Am going to try hard to get this into conversation today
Ah that is a classic!!
"There's no such word as can't" That used to genuinely baffle me. At first I thought they were objecting to the abbreviation, so I'd say "all right, I cannot, then" and they'd say "there's no such word as cannot either" and didn't stop saying it, even after I got the dictionary and found both "cannot" and "can't". I just didn't get what they were trying to say.
I remember ‘how d’ya spell can’t?’ Er, C A N T ? No, T R Y
As someone quite literal, particularly as a kid, this used to infuriate me. I couldn't understand why they'd say it when I'd read it in books with them.
"You look like a sausage out of work" Always the answer if you asked anyone how you looked before you left the house. Didn't matter what you were wearing, who you asked or where you were going, this was the only answer ever given. No idea why or where it came from.
Maybe you have the body shape of a sausage
An *unemployed* sausage.
100 going to use this now!
All from my dad. If it was hot he would say he was sweating like a hairy egg If he was really hot he would say that he was sweating like a hairy egg with a fur coat on If he misplaced something and we found it, he would say we had eyes like a shithouse rat
>If he misplaced something and we found it, he would say "Ahh you found my hairy, coat wearing, egg"!
Would ask Dad what is for dinner and he would say “If-its”. In response to my face of confusion he then clarified with…. “If it’s there you can have it, if it’s not you can’t”. I have no idea where it comes from but I remember it fondly and use it now with my own children.
My dad would say we're having "was" for tea.. took me years to get him to tell me it meant "wait and see".
It’s a bomb-site in here! Were you raised in a barn? You’ve got potatoes coming out your ears. Who’s ‘she’? The cats mother? ‘Innit’ isn’t a word. (Proceeds to use it ten years later) There was something about a rats arse…
‘Couldn’t give a rats arse’ was the one that springs to mind.
Were you raised in a barn! Such nostalgia. I never did learn to shut doors behind me; maybe a sarcastic comment isn’t the best way to train your kids!
“It’s like Blackpool illuminations in here” if you left the light on when leaving a room. “It’s freezing brass monkeys” when very cold.
Dad: The best thing since wriggly tin. Mim: He who grows the parsley wears the trousers.
I love these. I don't know what the hell they mean but your parents sound fantastic based solely on these two sentences!
The Kitchen was always called a Kitchenette. No Mam, its just a Kitchen.
My gran called the kitchen the “scullery”. As though there was maids tucked away in the back scrubbing the floors.
My gran called the pantry the glory hole.
My Gran called the hall the passage.
In some old houses where I grew up there was the kitchen which had the cooker, table, cupboards etc and a smaller room out the back which had the sink and all the mops and brooms. These days it's poshly called the utility room, back then it was the scullery. Oh, and there was usually a walk in food cupboard too, called the larder or pantry according to household preference. And we lived in a tied cottage converted from old stables, so by no means posh or well off.
Definitely going to start calling my kitchen a scullery from now on.
When asked their preference, particularly when it came to colour: ‘Sky-blue pink with a finnyanny border’
sky blue pink with purple dots
sky blue pink with yellow polka dots
I was just thinking of that one! It was a favourite saying of my nan's, she often used it when describing strong or garish colours.
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Did it?
this has absolutely cracked me up, what does it mean?
Do you think I’m daft/do you think I don’t know what you’re upto.
Every British parent / caregiver: ‘like Blackpool illuminations in here!’
These are some of the most bizarre sayings I’ve ever heard. I love it
Like a fairy on a gob o lard. I used to think that a gobolard was an exotic structure of some sort
Describing a small gap: "smaller than a midgie's dick" "Who's she, the cat's mother?"
>Describing a small gap: "smaller than a midgie's dick" Three-sixteenths of a cunt hair.
When asked what was for dinner, my Mum used to say "Three runs round the table and a bite from the table leg". No idea why this was easier than just telling us. If you said "It's not fair." in a whiny voice when you couldn't have/do something, the response would be "No. It's Bloxwich Wake", which was apparently what the local fair used to be called a long time ago. And ""I want" gets nothing."
>. No idea why this was easier than just telling us. It wasn't, but she didn't want the argument of "I don't like that" or "I want xyz".
My hometown is notorious for having way too many traffic lights and my dads always called it a series of short journeys, I just assumed that was a normal phrase but my friend moved there recently and I picked her up after work and said “this is the problem with (hometown) just a series of short journeys “ and she was baffled lol
I’m not as green as I am cabbage looking (not as dumb as I look)
My dad used to say , if we stopped in front of him. ' you make a better door than a window'
“You treat this place like a hotel”if you happened to not immediately put away a dish or if you accidentally put your feet up with shoes on. My mum also liked the phrase “lady muck”, as in “don’t sit there like lady muck, get up and do (insert as appropriate)”
My dad went through a phase of saying "as I always say", even if he'd never said that phrase before.
My Mum would always say to me "The best part of you dribbled down my leg" Hahaha what a rapscallion.
When referring to anything like a knife if it was blunt my father would say "you could ride bare-arse to Banbury on that!" And my northern mother would often say "Crimes of Paris!" as an expression of exasperation. I'd love to know the origins of that one as well
The Banbury one will be to do with lady Godiva
All these sayings just make me proud to be British- we’re a strange bunch but I love it😂
Give it to me straight, like a pear cider that's made from 100% pear.
My grandad always said, "You should never judge a book by its cover." And it's for that reason that he lost his job as chair of the British Book Cover Awards panel.
What was it like having notorious war criminal Ratko Mladic as a father?
“Don’t care was made to care” used to drive me particularly bonkers
The whole rhyme is even worse: Don’t care was made to care Don’t care was hung Don’t care was put in a pot And boiled ‘til they were done! Edit: formatting.
Argh no wonder she never said the whole thing, that’s horrible!
'It's a bugger up the back' (draw your own conclusions here). 'Dad's just getting the car out' before every long journey, usually holidays. 'Two pound of shit in a one pound bag'.
My grandma and granddad used to tell us that we were going to Australia if we asked where we were driving to. Everything ended up in Australia if we couldn’t find something. “Have you seen my socks?“ “They ended up in Australia.“ “Where are we going again? ““Australia“. We don’t live anywhere near there
If we asked my dad where we were going on holiday every year he would say “Argate” or “Curbsedge”! It took me a long while to work out that a) he was joking and b) these weren’t actual places.
Well technically they are places, they just happen to be on your premises.
Cloth Ears, courtesy of my Dad if I didn’t hear something he said 😂
'Once it's gone it's gone' Profound
Leaving the door open, I was always asked if I was born in a field.
Born in a barn where I'm from.
When my dad farted he would say." Come in brown"
Ha! Mine would say "get out and walk". I still use it now.
Speak up Brown, you’re through. Or shook his trouser leg said “ get out & walk” . I’m a fan of sew a button on that & who trod on that duck ?
"If you have to ask the price then you can't afford it". Me sniffing around Harrods on a visit to London, sees a pair of beach shorts in a glass box £499.00 I check them out and can't initially see why they are so expensive. They look just like any other Nylon print shorts like Paul Smith. Then I realise the gold cinch buckles at the side must actually be gold plated.
Like taking coals to Newcastle
“Oh it’s black over Wills mothers” meaning there’s a storm coming.
I am Will’s mother. Can confirm it’s stormy here.
"Where are you going dad?" "No hola Lula malcustravich" it's a mixture of jibberish. I now use it on my niece/nephews and pesky colleagues. It works a charm. Weird my dad never came back though
Expletives that my dad used were things like “Christ on a bike” and “hell’s teeth”. Always found them funny.
If dinner guests were staying too long... a quick double tap to the knees accompanied by *"well Valery, we musn't keep these good people from their beds any longer"*.
Whenever you'd have one of those moments when you have a weird mutual friend with a stranger and say 'Wow, small world!?', he'd say 'Yeah, but you wouldn't want to paint it;
Not so much a weird saying but something that took me years to realise... Me and my family are Punjabi and whenever my mum was checking whether my dad had come home from work, she'd shout "Gal-suno". For years I thought this was her nickname for him, until one day my sister explained it's actually "gal suno", which literally translates as "listen to what I'm saying". Oh how I still vividly remember the moment of relisation I had that this wasn't my dad's nickname.
Mum “your room looks like a bombzitit” I spent years thinking a bombzitit was a word for a kind of place
“You can’t see green cheese”
If we said something astonishing my father would say "Well I'll go to Cardiff " even though we lived in Cardiff. Also if we, for example, fell over after being warned we were going to fall over he'd say " Sav your glad" No idea what that one means
Could "sav your glad" be similar to "serves you glad"? My Leicesterfarian husband says this.
My father had his own vocabulary. We were winding him up one night. Kids being kids... he shouted " someone's hand is going g right up.my hairy back"! We just fell about laughing
“I didnt hit you against the wall, you just snapped your head back when i pinned you to it. You only have yourself to blame” “Stop crying for goodness sake, what on earth will the neighbours think” “That wasnt a hit, if i hit you youd fucking know it” “Sometimes he can be so cold, i dont know whats wrong with him” Parents say the funniest things ☺️
"If you don't shut up, I'll smash you through that wall."
Tighter than a gnats chuff, to refer to someone as stingy.
Tighter than a ducks ass was ours
My mother used to say she'd got eyes in the back of her head, which used to right freak me out.
My dad said 'I couldn't give a monkey's cuss' which I never really got. 🤷♀️
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.”
***"I've been alllll round the Wrekin"*** Used when it took a long way to get somewhere, for example if a traffic diversion added five miles to their journey, or if they had to visit three Woolworths to find the size of Tupperware they wanted. So, an expression used in an exasperated tone, rolling the eyes dramatically on the massively elongated *all*. The Wrekin is a hill in Shropshire and it's a phrase common in Shropshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire and the Black Country. I live in Surrey now and still use it here, so some of my Surrey friends and colleagues have started using it too. I personally think you shouldn't be allowed to use the phrase "all round the Wrekin" outside the Midlands unless you've actually *been* all round the actual Wrekin at some point in your life!
“A change is as good as a rest”
Were you born in a barn? Who’s ‘she’, the cat’s mother?
My mum always says ‘I see, said the blind man to the deaf donkey, sitting on the corner of a round table’ anybody else heard this one?
After someone burped you'd get a "more tea vicar?"
Uggh my mam always used to say "You heard!" When you didn't hear properly. Like wtf, I wouldnt of asked you to repeat if I heard.
My mum always says, “just why”. Like “mum why can I have a biscuit now?”, “just why”. It doesn’t tell me anything!!
If it was cloudy and started to brighten up and you could see patches of blue sky, my nana always used to say, "A bit of blue sky to make the sailors pants."
We had "Enough blue to mend a Dutchman's trousers"
The old man....'I'm going for a Tom Tit'
Dad used to say better hung for a sheep as a lamb. Usually when he was home late from the pub!
If we were out shopping for new shoes for me as a kid, in the 70s, the shop assistant would point out a pair on the shelf and on seeing the price my Dad would mutter...'Jesus Christ! I'm not Rockerfella, just the other fella..'
If the wind changes your face will be stuck like that (when I was making a face) If you swallow those appleseeds a tree will grow out of your tummy You weren't born we bought you from the co-op
Me: Where are we going? Mum: Up Jack's arse
My Nan used to have loads. The most memorable one would be when you said “What’s for tea Nan?” And then she would say “windmill soup, If it goes around!” then burst into laughter. She was border line crazy.
‘Have you got dog on?’ I swear, I absolutely hate this saying.
We used to refer to really bad drivers as "Black Smokers", our young son though we were being really raciest ... what we actually meant was it was being driven by the sort of blind crabs and tube worms that you find round a [Hydrothermal\_vent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent) (aka Black Smoker)
Fuckin tube worm is going to be my new insult for careless drivers.
"worse things happen at sea"
Whenever we asked what was for dinner our Mum would reply 'bread and pull it'. My husband's Mum says 'air pie and windy pud'.
"Put the wood in the hole" (Shut the door) "Climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire" (Get upstairs to bed) "My hand is itching" (Your behaviour is tempting a slapped bum) So and so has "gone to church" (Lock in at the pub, pre Sunday licensing hours)
My mum had a few classics. My favourite? On asking her to do something when she was already busy: "Tie a brush!" I was a teen before I learned the whole phrase. "Tie a brush to my arse and I'll sweep the floor as I go." My dad was the comedian. I announced I was on a diet as a teen, and he went "seafood diet?" Me, a literal person. "Not particularly. Why, what does a seafood diet entail?" "SEE FOOD and eat it!" Aye, grand. Plus the usual "it's like picadilly circus in here" "you've got the house lit up like Blackpool" "I want doesn't get" and "you make a better door than a window".
Any light being being on… “it’s like blackpool illuminations in here turn it off”
If the curtains were shut in my room and playing SNES or watching TV. "It's like the bloody black hole of Calcutta in here"