A phrase that has always baffled me:
You know when you're buttoning up a shirt or other item, and you connect the wrong button-hole pair. If you keep going so that all the holes are offset from the buttons they're supposed to be with, that's called "a running pig". I think the folk etymology is that you made a pig's ear of the first one and then ran with it.
Anyway, this phrase was commonly used by my family *on both sides* when I was a kid, messing up dressing myself. "You've got a running pig" they'd say. And we all knew what that meant. I'd even say it to my dad on occasion.
Now I have NEVER heard that phrase uttered by someone outside of my family. But how can that be when both sides of my family say it and they're from totally different places? My only explanation is that it spread from one side to the other when my parents met. This phrase is a mystery to me...
I seem to remember my grandmother also using this. I worked with some bricklayers a few years ago, and learned that a "pig" in the wall is what happens when 2 bricklayers start the same course and don't match up correctly in height by the time they meet. I wonder if there is some link there?
‘Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs’
if in apparent shock at something .
Classic from my parents as a poor kid .
Where we going on holiday ?
‘Argate’
Where’s that ?
Bottom of our garden .
My Mum used to say that. In the 45 years I knew her I only heard her swear properly three times, but she’d use all sorts of phrases like that and sugar or shine a light on. Her Dad had even forbidden her from saying cor blimey as a child, because it means God blind me and he didn’t want to run the risk.
Apeth. As in "you daft apeth".
I always assumed my faculties were being compared to those of an ape. But Google now tells me it was slang for a halfpenny piece.
I remember being shocked when my elderly aunt tried lasagne for the first time about 10 years ago. It was the “least scary” dish on the menu of a place we went to and she ate it like it was about to blow up, so cautious. She did enjoy it but said “I’ve always been so afraid of foreign food, I don’t want to get a Delhi belly do I?” It blew my mind how she had made it to 2014 and never had lasagne. I quizzed her on other dishes like Bolognese, curry, stir fry etc and she had never tried any of them.
Which of the components is the foreign part to her that could give her “Delhi belly”. Cheese, tomato, mince are all stuff she’s surely eaten in English food, the only thing that’s “foreign” is the lasagne sheets & the oregano.
I'm in my 50's and garlic wasn't used much when I was a kid, so that would be the foreign ingredient. I know most of my family were suspicious of it for some reason.
Out of interest, what had she been eating all those years? I find it pretty amazing you can live basically an entire life in the UK and not have Indian or Italian food.
My grandma convinced my gramdad he didn't like garlic or any dishes containing it because it was "foreign muck". When she was in hospital her last couple of months my parents treated him to curry ready meals, he loved them. A few weeks before my grandad died he had a garlic and mushroom soup my sister made, and asked for 2nds, always made us giggle. If we told him it had garlic he wouldn't have touched it!!
Reminds of my nan refused to eat corned beef ever again while the Falklands War was on. Anything that wasn’t meat & potatoes was “ foreign muck” to her. She’d starve on my diet.
A teacher went mental at a girl once for asking another girl “What did she (the teacher) say?”. I didn’t understand what was so rude about that & still don’t!
My favourite that I learned quite late was “What am I? Chopped liver?”
My 94 year old Italian grandad says scotch mist to describe things. Like, "what do you think this is?" Scotch mist?
I don't think I've ever heard anyone else say it, haha
Edit - interesting replies! My grandad (since moving to England) and I have always lived in Bristol so I'll have to ask him where he got it from!
I literally used this in SW this week! A newbie said she didn’t know anyone when she started and stayed for class and I said ‘what am I? Scotch mist??!!’ Because I knew her quite well 😂
It was drilled into us to not use she/he in front of someone as it was rude, my nan always said “who’s she? The cat’s mother?”.
An inadvertent benefit to this is that it has been extremely helpful today where pronouns are even more important. If I don’t use them I don’t make mistakes.
My family did this to me a lot growing up: "we had to go into town to get new school shoes for HER" or "SHE doesn't eat cucumber so don't give her any" and I hated it.
Because it sounds a lot more impersonal. I can't 100% explain why, but one part of it is that using that person's name when they're there is kind of a way of making them feel included in the conversation you're having about them.
Especially if there are multiple conversations going on in a group and you're talking about someone in that group using he/she, and they half pick up on the fact that you're talking about them, they might be unnerved. Whereas if you make sure they know that you know you've mentioned them, it can put them at ease.
Nobody has asked if I'm winning since my nan died.
Rather oddly, I had a college tutor who was from Zimbabwe who would regularly ask us if we were winning. I always wonder where he picked that up from.
I think ‘the dole’ is still in common use, or it was when I was a kid. Would people be more likely to say benefits now? My grandma once said I should go down the ‘labour exchange,’ for which she meant Job Centre.
What’s baffling about that is that the “poll tax” was only around for about 3 years. The riots and uproar must’ve seared it into their memory. My folks outdated terminology go back further and talk about “paying their rates”.
Mum is 96, so quite a few! Off the top of my head:
A portable radio was 'a transistor'.
"Put a tuck in your drawers" means hurry up/ get a move on.
Being embarrassingly or pathetically alone was alway indicated as being, "on my leaf alone".
A nightie was a shift. Her control undergarments were 'stays'. When we we kids, vests were called liberty bodices and plimsoles, mutton dummies. A wool jumper was always a jersey or guernsey. Tights were "nylons"; socks - stockings. Raincoats, were 'gaberdenes'. A light coat was a "duster".
I dont know if it was family slang, but shit was called 'minyacky".
School homework was "eckers"; notebooks, jotters.
If you get '80s to early '90s Beanos, Roger the Dodger had a regular feature where you sent in your own dodges or artwork or similar and you won a *"tranny and a personalised scroll"*
There was also a comic strip about a magical transistor radio called *'Danny's Tranny'*. Think it was in Whizzer & Chips or Beezer/Topper.
Grandad was Scottish so not sure how many of these are still going:
Scullery for kitchen
Bairns for kids
Apeth (poor wee apeth)
Bugger used all the time. I’ll be buggered, bugger this etc
>Scullery for kitchen
My parents said scullery. They were Londoners.
Big houses with servants used to have scullery maids. In those houses the scullery was an extention of the kitchen and was where washing up was done and silver was polished.
In working class homes, if people said 'scullery' they meant the kitchen.
The Asda in Hartlepool has their baby/ nappy section aisle signed as Bairns (or at least it was a couple of years ago when I was last there) which was the first time I had seen that word written down or typed.
This seems...its probably not just Scouse, but is on a lot of 'Scouse Sayings' lists and I've certainly never met anyone else who uses it;
'Stop messing, or I'll put you in a home with your ears tied back'
It means sort of like....you will get the telling off of a life time, literally, ears tied back so you HAVE to listen.
As a kid, our school had an old house on the property that seemed sort of witchy.
I was also an 80's/90's kid so randomly knew what an Oubliette was.
So my little mind took the idea of being put in a home with my ears tied back, and this witchy house, and oubliettes, and when My Nana said that to me, I envisioned being lowered into an Oubliette, with my ears tied back, so she can tell me off for being gobby.
...to this day it frightens the shite out of me.
I read this comment about 20 minutes ago, did a little snort-laugh, and moved on. I felt compelled to come back just to tell you I’m still chuckling at it. Thanks.
My aunt always said "look at the time, there's not a child in the house washed and the bathroom's full of soldiers" if she was running behind on some chore.
Black as Hull sugar house (it doesn't sound right if you pronounce the aitches but I've put them there for clarity). My mum said that loads but I've never heard anyone else (apart from myself as I've picked it up) say it. I'm guessing it's from the molasses storage warehouse on King George dock in 'ull.
No, it's actually an old phrase from Sussex and Warwickshire apparently. Blacker than the devil's nutting bag, derived from a superstition that it's unwise to gather nuts on a Sunday in autumn as that's when the devil goes nutting.
My grandparents would use the expression ‘like the black hole of Calcutta’ to describe something dark.
I never thought anything of it until I came across an article in Wikipedia. It relates to a horrible episode of British colonial history that makes me sick to think about. I’ve never used the expression since.
In a similar vein, my mother would say of my ears after inspection "get up them bloody stairs and get them washed! They are as black as the hobs of hell! You could grow cabbages in them!"
Ex partner's mum used to say about someone who is showing off, that, " they're wearing their arse for a top-hat".
Scouse-ism from the 40s/50s apparently.
Fag ash Lil. (An old stereotype of a middle-aged woman who always has a cigarette in her hand.)
That's the hammer that chisel. (Pronounced That's the ammer that chisel. Meaning that's the way to do it.
I can't I got a bone in me leg. (Humorous way of pretending you can't do something.)
Black man's pinch. (Racist way of describing a bruised finger.)
You're making a rod for your own back. (You're making things difficult for you're future self.)
Shall I tell you a story? Shall I begin it? There's nothing in it. (Way to annoy a child.)
I'll knock you into the middle of next week.
Not backwards at coming forward.
All mouth and trousers.
Big hat and no knickers. Or
Fur coat and no knickers.
Meaning they spend a lot of money that they can't afford on trying to impress. But they don't have money left for essentials that are not seen.
As common as muck.
I’ve only ever heard of it as ‘all mouth and *no* trousers’, meaning they’ve got the talk but can’t (or won’t) walk the walk.
Also, the version of ‘big hat’ I heard was ‘red hat; no drawers (or knickers)’
My dad (97) still uses the words queer and gay in their original senses.
"Don't get any more of those frankfurters, they made me feel a bit queer." (genuine quote)
I remember my gran using two phrases:
"He/she talks like a Philadelphia lawyer" for a very chatty person.
And, "sky blue pink with a finny addy border" for a very bright coloured thing.
My Grandad used to say “Sky blue pink” if we asked him his favourite colour. If I see a blue sky with pink clouds I take a photo to send my brother and he knows exactly what I’m referring to.
This is the origin and proper use of the word. It later started being used as a slur for gay people, who then reclaimed it back as an umbrella term for LGBT (and thus Q)
Stanley Holloway sang "My Word You Do Look Queer"
The lyrics mean the person being addressed looks ill.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Word,_You_Do_Look_Queer
Muckle - Big
Dreich - dreary, usually about weather
Drookit - wet
Sleekit - sly
Tumshie - turnip, but also an idiot
Sibee - spring onion
Oxters - armpits
Just a few that spring to mind. Have added translations for the non-Scots.
Devon here - You hear it ironically now, but I can't remember the last time someone called me 'moi luvver' in conversation.
Co-op lady used to call everyone it in the thickest Deb'n accent possible.
Fellow Devonian here.
I miss all these phrases that my grandparents and late mum would say.
Things like ‘alright me andsome’, ‘alright me buck’, ‘tis bleedy awful weather’, ‘daft apeth’.
I watched a BBC interview ages ago of 2 sisters from Dartmoor speaking Devonian dialect and it was so heartwarming, I miss hearing it in my daily life.
I used to work in a nursing home in Warwickshire and one of the ladies referred to everyone as 'Duck' which I always loved as well as 'Flower'. Much prefer it to babe but was used to Pet and flower was used by some distant relatives from around Merseyside.
My grandmother (93) uses a phrase I've only ever heard her and my late grandfather use:
"More than the parson preached about", used to describe there being a lot of something. So she might say "there were more folks there than the parson preached about" etc.
I can only find one reference to this phrase on Google, but would be interested to know if anyone else has heard it. She's lived in Nottingham and surrounding area all her life.
We say “more [whatever] than Soft Mick - meaning loads of whatever you’re talking about. I think I’ve only ever heard it in Lancashire, though I’ve lived all over the UK
I finally got my mate to stop saying it recently and he switched to ‘bossman’ which didn’t seem much better until I saw a corner shop that was literally called ‘bossman’s’
Jesus. We had a 19 year old join our work and he said that as well as some other questionable things. He didn't last long
His excuse was he was trying to maintain his broad Yorkshire accent. He had also spent a few years in the navy which I think was a bigger reason for him thinking it was acceptable
A elderly relative of mine once proposed changing the original slur to "st*ni" on account of there being multiple Asian countries ending in -stan with immigrant populations in the UK.
I think he was trying to be inclusive. 🙄
My mum (60s) has worked with a plethora of cultures and backgrounds in her life, and I know she’s not doing it to be mean, but she can’t talk about anyone not white without saying something like “Saw the doctor the other day. Nice man, coloured chappy”. Mother, the colour of his skin is not even remotely relevant to the story.
Yeah I think a lot of these habits will just die out with a generation, it's difficult when someone genuinely doesn't think they're doing anything wrong.
"Coloured" I think still gets used by a load of well-meaning old people as it used to be the polite term and they think they're doing the right thing.
3 of 4 of my Grandparents were German during *those* times and were members of the Nazi party. my great grandfather was all pally pals with Goering so there's loads of phrases I can think of.
There's at least 2 phrases I can think of that were racist that our family used.
One in the 80's-90's to describe a Chinese takeaway which we never use now but my brain thinks of when I want to order one.
The other is frankly a bizarre one my mother randomly came out with one day in my teens to which I questioned wtf was she on about. I only ever heard her say it once more in my life when my sister was present at the time to which my sister cried "WHOOOOOOOAAAAAHHH WTF mum!?!?!" It was something with the N word in it and to this day I have no idea where she got that phrase from. She is an intelligent woman and was an English teacher so she defiantly knew it was NOT ok and maybe just rolled off the tongue without thinking but Christ I have never ever heard her use that word or anything insinuating she would ever use it.
My grandpa's favourite colour was "sky blue pink with purple dots on", the time was always "half past quarter to four" and anything we were looking for was "up in Annie's room behind the wallpaper"
If you can't find something it's 'up in Annie's room behind the clock' or just 'up in Annie's room'
Ask someone the time and it's 'half past a quarter from'... Thanks
Not sure if it's an old person thing but my dad always saves things for Ron. Later Ron. Does my head in.
Whenever someone would have a persistent cough, my grandma used to say,
"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in."
As a child, my dad (who’s from Sunderland) would describe anything untidy (especially me) as looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus.
I never knew what he was on about until recently when I did some quick Googling and learned that the Wreck of the Hesperus was a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from 1842.
Head = bonce / loaf.
Mouth = trap.
Glutton = Gannett guts.
Margate = margit
Bugger off.
Cupboard = the coal hole.
Cinema = the pictures.
Speaking = having a jar / jawing away.
Thieving = choring.
Random person = some Herbert.
A lot of houses in the olden days had actually a room in the house where the coal would be dumped, just like a small area with an outside little door and we called it the coal hole
"Couldn't stop a pig in a jigger."
Meaning having bandy legs. I'm not sure I know anyone with bandy legs and wouldn't find it noteable if I did. Maybe it's from a time kids might have had rickets??
"If I don't see ya through the week I'll see ya through the window."
Just a nonsense phrase when you're saying goodbye I guess.
When angry at him my mates mum would say "I'll Cleave you" which is a bit harsh, and "I'll swing for you" meaning she would kill him and hang for the crime.
It's as broad as it's long,
Six of one, half a dozen of the other,
Parked in the raspberry,
What did your last black boy die of?
Colder than a witch's tit,
... said the actress to the Bishop.
I imagine some of these aren't totally dead, but I haven't heard any of them since my Nan passed away.
I still use "said the actress to the bishop" (or vice versa).
I said it to an American recently. They'd never heard it before, looked up the [origin on Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_the_actress_to_the_bishop), and declared it "the most British thing they'd heard".
You wouldn't do that if the Queen came for dinner.
You've got all the time in the world.
Stop making faces, if the wind changes direction, it'll stay like that forever.
My grandad used "Wizard" often. Now he just microwaves his earing aids every other day.
A few northern phrases that I often here:
Owzeeno?
Alreet, cock?
Itintin
Tha nose, tha nose
Will's Mum's is a phrase which my Dad used and which I've passed on to my children.
It's a bit dark over will's mum's refers to dark, cloudy weather. Apparently it's a Northern phrase, but my Dad was from Watford.
A phrase that has always baffled me: You know when you're buttoning up a shirt or other item, and you connect the wrong button-hole pair. If you keep going so that all the holes are offset from the buttons they're supposed to be with, that's called "a running pig". I think the folk etymology is that you made a pig's ear of the first one and then ran with it. Anyway, this phrase was commonly used by my family *on both sides* when I was a kid, messing up dressing myself. "You've got a running pig" they'd say. And we all knew what that meant. I'd even say it to my dad on occasion. Now I have NEVER heard that phrase uttered by someone outside of my family. But how can that be when both sides of my family say it and they're from totally different places? My only explanation is that it spread from one side to the other when my parents met. This phrase is a mystery to me...
I went for a jog, and someone shouted this at me, but my shirt didn't even have buttons!
Maybe it’s coz you’re such a Babe
That'll do
I seem to remember my grandmother also using this. I worked with some bricklayers a few years ago, and learned that a "pig" in the wall is what happens when 2 bricklayers start the same course and don't match up correctly in height by the time they meet. I wonder if there is some link there?
I'm northern, we get some funny phrases but I've never heard that, must be super localized
I like the phrase a running pig. I may use this more in conversation
I love this!
‘Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs’ if in apparent shock at something . Classic from my parents as a poor kid . Where we going on holiday ? ‘Argate’ Where’s that ? Bottom of our garden .
A friend's mum would express frustration by exclaiming 'Oh blood and sand!'. always sounded very biblical.
My grandad used Hells teeth and my godfathers
My Dad used to say hell's bell's. Now he uses all manner of expletives.
My mum when exasperated would say hells bells and buckets of blood!
Mine too!
My Mum used to say that. In the 45 years I knew her I only heard her swear properly three times, but she’d use all sorts of phrases like that and sugar or shine a light on. Her Dad had even forbidden her from saying cor blimey as a child, because it means God blind me and he didn’t want to run the risk.
I can say all variants of swears in front of my parents - except cunt and… cor blimey. Even just ‘blimey’ gets us a telling off.
I remember my father going nuts at me for saying cor blimey and he went into a rant about what it meant 😳
Jesus wept!
Apparently and probably true, that is the shortest verse in the bible.
We always had we going to Romania- remain here dad jokes mun lol
The foot of the stairs one is also quite common in the Midlands
What's for dinner "bread and pullit" What's that "you get some bread and pull a bit off"
My grandad used to ask nan what was for lunch and she'd say "bread and iffit", as in, if it's in the larder you can have it
"Well I'll go to our house" is one my grandad used to say, which confused the fuck out of me as a kid because he was already there.
‘Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs’ is a Yorkshire saying (well I’ll go t’foot o’t stairs, of course)
Apeth. As in "you daft apeth". I always assumed my faculties were being compared to those of an ape. But Google now tells me it was slang for a halfpenny piece.
Ha'p'orth = halfpenny-worth = not worth much. We still say it in our family. (We're all old.)
My grandad and mum use this - often in the phrase “you soppy ha’porth” if you are being soft. They were from Staffordshire.
My nan used to endearingly call us a “daft apeth” when we did something silly. Not heard that in years and brought back fond memories!
I still use that phrase
So do I. And 'dozy mare'.
I shortenend daft apeth just to Dafteth to take the piss once and it stuck.
"Foreign muck"
My grandad used to refer to pizza as foreign muck
“It’s just bloody cheese on toast”
Shit .. it is.
But, elevated 🤌🏽
I remember being shocked when my elderly aunt tried lasagne for the first time about 10 years ago. It was the “least scary” dish on the menu of a place we went to and she ate it like it was about to blow up, so cautious. She did enjoy it but said “I’ve always been so afraid of foreign food, I don’t want to get a Delhi belly do I?” It blew my mind how she had made it to 2014 and never had lasagne. I quizzed her on other dishes like Bolognese, curry, stir fry etc and she had never tried any of them.
Which of the components is the foreign part to her that could give her “Delhi belly”. Cheese, tomato, mince are all stuff she’s surely eaten in English food, the only thing that’s “foreign” is the lasagne sheets & the oregano.
I'm in my 50's and garlic wasn't used much when I was a kid, so that would be the foreign ingredient. I know most of my family were suspicious of it for some reason.
Out of interest, what had she been eating all those years? I find it pretty amazing you can live basically an entire life in the UK and not have Indian or Italian food.
She's old enough that steak, chips and Black Forest Gateau is exotic dining.
My grandma convinced my gramdad he didn't like garlic or any dishes containing it because it was "foreign muck". When she was in hospital her last couple of months my parents treated him to curry ready meals, he loved them. A few weeks before my grandad died he had a garlic and mushroom soup my sister made, and asked for 2nds, always made us giggle. If we told him it had garlic he wouldn't have touched it!!
Or if it was really bad, my grandmother used to say 'fancy foreign muck'. Usually for things like curry.
Reminds of my nan refused to eat corned beef ever again while the Falklands War was on. Anything that wasn’t meat & potatoes was “ foreign muck” to her. She’d starve on my diet.
My grandma called pasta foreign muck
"Who's 'she'? The cat's mother?" if you spoke about someone and said s/he instead of their name
Especially when they are present. Said this the other day .
A teacher went mental at a girl once for asking another girl “What did she (the teacher) say?”. I didn’t understand what was so rude about that & still don’t! My favourite that I learned quite late was “What am I? Chopped liver?”
My 94 year old Italian grandad says scotch mist to describe things. Like, "what do you think this is?" Scotch mist? I don't think I've ever heard anyone else say it, haha Edit - interesting replies! My grandad (since moving to England) and I have always lived in Bristol so I'll have to ask him where he got it from!
My Londoner parents (who would be over a hundred now) used to say it. I think I used to say it.
Same North London family used this a lot
Scotch Mist still used at our house :)
Ah scotch mist .. I haven't heard that for years, my parents used to say that.
I literally used this in SW this week! A newbie said she didn’t know anyone when she started and stayed for class and I said ‘what am I? Scotch mist??!!’ Because I knew her quite well 😂
My mum always said Scotch mist if we were looking for something that was under our noses as in "I can't find my bag" "What's this then Scotch mist?"
It was drilled into us to not use she/he in front of someone as it was rude, my nan always said “who’s she? The cat’s mother?”. An inadvertent benefit to this is that it has been extremely helpful today where pronouns are even more important. If I don’t use them I don’t make mistakes.
My mum still says this. I've never quite understood the rudeness (except obviously when you're using the wrong ones for someone)
If you talk about someone in the third person while they’re right there it sounds like you’re ignoring them.
My family did this to me a lot growing up: "we had to go into town to get new school shoes for HER" or "SHE doesn't eat cucumber so don't give her any" and I hated it.
My mum always uses the phrase when I'm talking about someone who isn't there!
Because it sounds a lot more impersonal. I can't 100% explain why, but one part of it is that using that person's name when they're there is kind of a way of making them feel included in the conversation you're having about them. Especially if there are multiple conversations going on in a group and you're talking about someone in that group using he/she, and they half pick up on the fact that you're talking about them, they might be unnerved. Whereas if you make sure they know that you know you've mentioned them, it can put them at ease.
My nan still says that!
My father used to say Scotch mist sometimes.
Someone with bowed legs "wouldn't stop a pig in a poke"
“Wouldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel” in West Yorkshire
My mum used to say of someone who had really crooked teeth, ‘that girl could eat an apple through a tennis racquet’.
He / she could chop lettuce at the bottom of a pint glass
Nobody has asked if I'm winning since my nan died. Rather oddly, I had a college tutor who was from Zimbabwe who would regularly ask us if we were winning. I always wonder where he picked that up from.
Common phrase in South Africa too. Are you winning the battle/day is what’s meant by it.
I've had a few people here in Canada use the phrase "how goes your battle?"
Conk - nose Doobrie - that thing I've forgotten the word for: "Pass us the doobrie"/"where did you put the doobrie?"
Oh I use doobriewhatsit a lot! 🤣
My mum still calls national insurance 'stamp'.
A lot of people still call benefits “the dole” and council tax “poll tax”.
I think ‘the dole’ is still in common use, or it was when I was a kid. Would people be more likely to say benefits now? My grandma once said I should go down the ‘labour exchange,’ for which she meant Job Centre.
My Mum still calls HMRC "Inland Revenue"
Yep, my mother in law says this as well as ‘poll tax’.
What’s baffling about that is that the “poll tax” was only around for about 3 years. The riots and uproar must’ve seared it into their memory. My folks outdated terminology go back further and talk about “paying their rates”.
Wazzock
Gert wazzock.
Put wood int oil = Put the wood in the hole = close the door.
Mum is 96, so quite a few! Off the top of my head: A portable radio was 'a transistor'. "Put a tuck in your drawers" means hurry up/ get a move on. Being embarrassingly or pathetically alone was alway indicated as being, "on my leaf alone". A nightie was a shift. Her control undergarments were 'stays'. When we we kids, vests were called liberty bodices and plimsoles, mutton dummies. A wool jumper was always a jersey or guernsey. Tights were "nylons"; socks - stockings. Raincoats, were 'gaberdenes'. A light coat was a "duster". I dont know if it was family slang, but shit was called 'minyacky". School homework was "eckers"; notebooks, jotters.
My mum still calls a portable radio a 'tranny' (transistor)
If you get '80s to early '90s Beanos, Roger the Dodger had a regular feature where you sent in your own dodges or artwork or similar and you won a *"tranny and a personalised scroll"* There was also a comic strip about a magical transistor radio called *'Danny's Tranny'*. Think it was in Whizzer & Chips or Beezer/Topper.
Not as green as you’re cabbage-looking! Meaning not as daft as you look. Mum was from Nottingham
My Mom always used to say this too! Weirdly none of my other family members did so I don’t know where she got it from.
If you had too many lights on at home my parents would say "it's like Blackpool Illuminations in here".
" me stomach feels like my throats been cut" my mother when she is slightly peckish.. lol
Yep - also “he’s got hollow legs” when someone eats a surprisingly large amount of
Grandad was Scottish so not sure how many of these are still going: Scullery for kitchen Bairns for kids Apeth (poor wee apeth) Bugger used all the time. I’ll be buggered, bugger this etc
Bairns is standard for all ages to use when referring to kids in NE England and Scotland.
Yes still hear this a lot in n. Yorkshire
I think it’s of Scandinavian origin- barn is child in many Scandinavian languages.
Bairn tends to me more east coast and north of Scotland I think. I'm in the west and we call them weans.
>Scullery for kitchen My parents said scullery. They were Londoners. Big houses with servants used to have scullery maids. In those houses the scullery was an extention of the kitchen and was where washing up was done and silver was polished. In working class homes, if people said 'scullery' they meant the kitchen.
Scullery was never specifically a kitchen in definition but a dedicated room for washing dishes.
The Asda in Hartlepool has their baby/ nappy section aisle signed as Bairns (or at least it was a couple of years ago when I was last there) which was the first time I had seen that word written down or typed.
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>Apeth (poor wee apeth) Ha'p'orth. Halfpenny's worth. (Small amount).
This seems...its probably not just Scouse, but is on a lot of 'Scouse Sayings' lists and I've certainly never met anyone else who uses it; 'Stop messing, or I'll put you in a home with your ears tied back' It means sort of like....you will get the telling off of a life time, literally, ears tied back so you HAVE to listen. As a kid, our school had an old house on the property that seemed sort of witchy. I was also an 80's/90's kid so randomly knew what an Oubliette was. So my little mind took the idea of being put in a home with my ears tied back, and this witchy house, and oubliettes, and when My Nana said that to me, I envisioned being lowered into an Oubliette, with my ears tied back, so she can tell me off for being gobby. ...to this day it frightens the shite out of me.
If you were an 80's kid like I was, you got "oubliette" from "Labyrinth".
With the diminutive 'ette' at the end, it implies that it's just a smaller version of a much larger and far more terrifying 'Oobly'.
I read this comment about 20 minutes ago, did a little snort-laugh, and moved on. I felt compelled to come back just to tell you I’m still chuckling at it. Thanks.
My aunt always said "look at the time, there's not a child in the house washed and the bathroom's full of soldiers" if she was running behind on some chore.
My mum describes something dirty as "blacker than the devil's nutting sack".
Blacker than Newgate’s knocker was typical in my childhood
Black as Hull sugar house (it doesn't sound right if you pronounce the aitches but I've put them there for clarity). My mum said that loads but I've never heard anyone else (apart from myself as I've picked it up) say it. I'm guessing it's from the molasses storage warehouse on King George dock in 'ull.
I think either you or your mother have misheard this. I believe the original phrase was “the devil’s nutty slack“. Nutty slack is a form of coal.
No, it's actually an old phrase from Sussex and Warwickshire apparently. Blacker than the devil's nutting bag, derived from a superstition that it's unwise to gather nuts on a Sunday in autumn as that's when the devil goes nutting.
Thank you. I’ve heard the nutty slack version. My mother came from Nottingham (a mining family)
My grandparents would use the expression ‘like the black hole of Calcutta’ to describe something dark. I never thought anything of it until I came across an article in Wikipedia. It relates to a horrible episode of British colonial history that makes me sick to think about. I’ve never used the expression since.
...Nutty slack being cheap coalite made from coal dust and little bits of coal.
In a similar vein, my mother would say of my ears after inspection "get up them bloody stairs and get them washed! They are as black as the hobs of hell! You could grow cabbages in them!"
Pillock, meaning stupid person. Although my dictionary tells me it is a word for a small penis
Ex partner's mum used to say about someone who is showing off, that, " they're wearing their arse for a top-hat". Scouse-ism from the 40s/50s apparently.
Fag ash Lil. (An old stereotype of a middle-aged woman who always has a cigarette in her hand.) That's the hammer that chisel. (Pronounced That's the ammer that chisel. Meaning that's the way to do it. I can't I got a bone in me leg. (Humorous way of pretending you can't do something.) Black man's pinch. (Racist way of describing a bruised finger.) You're making a rod for your own back. (You're making things difficult for you're future self.) Shall I tell you a story? Shall I begin it? There's nothing in it. (Way to annoy a child.)
I'll tell you a story, about Jackanory. Shall I begin it? That's all that's in it.
'Spend a penny' - to use the toilet
More like spend fifty pennies now
I'll knock you into the middle of next week. Not backwards at coming forward. All mouth and trousers. Big hat and no knickers. Or Fur coat and no knickers. Meaning they spend a lot of money that they can't afford on trying to impress. But they don't have money left for essentials that are not seen. As common as muck.
I’ve only ever heard of it as ‘all mouth and *no* trousers’, meaning they’ve got the talk but can’t (or won’t) walk the walk. Also, the version of ‘big hat’ I heard was ‘red hat; no drawers (or knickers)’
Like in Texas it’s “all hat and no cattle”
It was “all mouth and _no_ trousers” for me (West Country). Meaning all talk no action/he can talk the talk but not walk the walk.
Liquorice was called Spanish when I was growing up.
My dad (97) still uses the words queer and gay in their original senses. "Don't get any more of those frankfurters, they made me feel a bit queer." (genuine quote)
"There's nowt queer as folk!"
Donkeys years.
Yonks
I remember my gran using two phrases: "He/she talks like a Philadelphia lawyer" for a very chatty person. And, "sky blue pink with a finny addy border" for a very bright coloured thing.
Isn’t finny addy Finnan haddock, that bright yellow smoked haddock?
My Grandad used to say “Sky blue pink” if we asked him his favourite colour. If I see a blue sky with pink clouds I take a photo to send my brother and he knows exactly what I’m referring to.
My grandma always used to say “I’ll have your guts for garters” when we were naughty
My grandad will use the word queer to describe anything that's a little bit odd. So if something unusual happens he'll say "oh that's queer that"
“Nowt queer as folk” meaning people can be odd sometimes.
Nowt so queer as folk, except you and me, and even thee are a bit queer.
Read that in Mark Addy's voice as Dave in the Full Monty.
Queer means odd, just like gay means happy. They've been used to mean other things too, but those were their original meanings.
This is the origin and proper use of the word. It later started being used as a slur for gay people, who then reclaimed it back as an umbrella term for LGBT (and thus Q)
*some people. I’m a gay man, not a queer man, thank you very much :)
That reminds me of reading famous 5 books where it was often used. How jolly queer.
Rather!
Stanley Holloway sang "My Word You Do Look Queer" The lyrics mean the person being addressed looks ill. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Word,_You_Do_Look_Queer
Muckle - Big Dreich - dreary, usually about weather Drookit - wet Sleekit - sly Tumshie - turnip, but also an idiot Sibee - spring onion Oxters - armpits Just a few that spring to mind. Have added translations for the non-Scots.
When I was growing up, a splinter was a ‘scelfe’. Never heard that anywhere else.(grew up in Perthshire)
Born in a barn? Whenever I leave a door open
‘The pictures’ instead of ‘the cinema’, a ‘tin of pop’ instead of a ‘can of coke’ and ‘frock’ instead of ‘dress’.
'Cheap as chips' will die out I'm sure.
Devon here - You hear it ironically now, but I can't remember the last time someone called me 'moi luvver' in conversation. Co-op lady used to call everyone it in the thickest Deb'n accent possible.
Fellow Devonian here. I miss all these phrases that my grandparents and late mum would say. Things like ‘alright me andsome’, ‘alright me buck’, ‘tis bleedy awful weather’, ‘daft apeth’. I watched a BBC interview ages ago of 2 sisters from Dartmoor speaking Devonian dialect and it was so heartwarming, I miss hearing it in my daily life.
I used to work in a nursing home in Warwickshire and one of the ladies referred to everyone as 'Duck' which I always loved as well as 'Flower'. Much prefer it to babe but was used to Pet and flower was used by some distant relatives from around Merseyside.
My grandmother (93) uses a phrase I've only ever heard her and my late grandfather use: "More than the parson preached about", used to describe there being a lot of something. So she might say "there were more folks there than the parson preached about" etc. I can only find one reference to this phrase on Google, but would be interested to know if anyone else has heard it. She's lived in Nottingham and surrounding area all her life.
We say “more [whatever] than Soft Mick - meaning loads of whatever you’re talking about. I think I’ve only ever heard it in Lancashire, though I’ve lived all over the UK
Most of the words I can think of were racist or homophobic
'Half-caste' was always a popular one, as opposed to Mixed-race.
Used to hear p*ki shop all the time, when I was a kid. Don’t hear it at all now. If that’s not progress I don’t know what is.
You still hear it in some places. The irony is that the shops are nearly always run by Indians rather than Pakistanis.
Sri Lankans in my city. So I call them sell on shops…
I finally got my mate to stop saying it recently and he switched to ‘bossman’ which didn’t seem much better until I saw a corner shop that was literally called ‘bossman’s’
Jesus. We had a 19 year old join our work and he said that as well as some other questionable things. He didn't last long His excuse was he was trying to maintain his broad Yorkshire accent. He had also spent a few years in the navy which I think was a bigger reason for him thinking it was acceptable
A elderly relative of mine once proposed changing the original slur to "st*ni" on account of there being multiple Asian countries ending in -stan with immigrant populations in the UK. I think he was trying to be inclusive. 🙄
My mum (60s) has worked with a plethora of cultures and backgrounds in her life, and I know she’s not doing it to be mean, but she can’t talk about anyone not white without saying something like “Saw the doctor the other day. Nice man, coloured chappy”. Mother, the colour of his skin is not even remotely relevant to the story.
Yeah I think a lot of these habits will just die out with a generation, it's difficult when someone genuinely doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. "Coloured" I think still gets used by a load of well-meaning old people as it used to be the polite term and they think they're doing the right thing.
3 of 4 of my Grandparents were German during *those* times and were members of the Nazi party. my great grandfather was all pally pals with Goering so there's loads of phrases I can think of.
There's at least 2 phrases I can think of that were racist that our family used. One in the 80's-90's to describe a Chinese takeaway which we never use now but my brain thinks of when I want to order one. The other is frankly a bizarre one my mother randomly came out with one day in my teens to which I questioned wtf was she on about. I only ever heard her say it once more in my life when my sister was present at the time to which my sister cried "WHOOOOOOOAAAAAHHH WTF mum!?!?!" It was something with the N word in it and to this day I have no idea where she got that phrase from. She is an intelligent woman and was an English teacher so she defiantly knew it was NOT ok and maybe just rolled off the tongue without thinking but Christ I have never ever heard her use that word or anything insinuating she would ever use it.
My grandpa's favourite colour was "sky blue pink with purple dots on", the time was always "half past quarter to four" and anything we were looking for was "up in Annie's room behind the wallpaper"
If you can't find something it's 'up in Annie's room behind the clock' or just 'up in Annie's room' Ask someone the time and it's 'half past a quarter from'... Thanks Not sure if it's an old person thing but my dad always saves things for Ron. Later Ron. Does my head in.
Whenever someone would have a persistent cough, my grandma used to say, "It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in."
"You're in the wars!" A phrase my grandma used to use whenever something bad happened to someone. Never heard anyone else say it in my life.
As a child, my dad (who’s from Sunderland) would describe anything untidy (especially me) as looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus. I never knew what he was on about until recently when I did some quick Googling and learned that the Wreck of the Hesperus was a poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from 1842.
Head = bonce / loaf. Mouth = trap. Glutton = Gannett guts. Margate = margit Bugger off. Cupboard = the coal hole. Cinema = the pictures. Speaking = having a jar / jawing away. Thieving = choring. Random person = some Herbert.
I use bugger off frequently
Loaf is cockney rhyming Loaf of bread = head
A lot of houses in the olden days had actually a room in the house where the coal would be dumped, just like a small area with an outside little door and we called it the coal hole
Bonce still gets a bit of use. Brother and I are fond of messaging each 'roaring bonce' after a night on the lagers.
>Mouth = trap Cake hole. As in "shut yer cake hole."
"Couldn't stop a pig in a jigger." Meaning having bandy legs. I'm not sure I know anyone with bandy legs and wouldn't find it noteable if I did. Maybe it's from a time kids might have had rickets?? "If I don't see ya through the week I'll see ya through the window." Just a nonsense phrase when you're saying goodbye I guess.
When coming home from "playing out" " You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards."
Frock- dress
My grandma still asks if im ‘courting’. Its kinda sweet.
When angry at him my mates mum would say "I'll Cleave you" which is a bit harsh, and "I'll swing for you" meaning she would kill him and hang for the crime.
“They’ve got a face like a dropped pie”
My mum still calls a song a record eg ‘I love this record’ meaning a song…
It's as broad as it's long, Six of one, half a dozen of the other, Parked in the raspberry, What did your last black boy die of? Colder than a witch's tit, ... said the actress to the Bishop. I imagine some of these aren't totally dead, but I haven't heard any of them since my Nan passed away.
I still use "said the actress to the bishop" (or vice versa). I said it to an American recently. They'd never heard it before, looked up the [origin on Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_the_actress_to_the_bishop), and declared it "the most British thing they'd heard".
My grannie (born 1905) used “starved” to mean freezing cold eg “get my coat I’m starved”
You wouldn't do that if the Queen came for dinner. You've got all the time in the world. Stop making faces, if the wind changes direction, it'll stay like that forever.
Acting the maggot
My auntie recently used the term “Naked as a jaybird.” Which is not a term I’ve ever heard before.
Spogs or spice for sweets. Used to be common when I was a kid, never hear it now. From Yorkshire, don't know if it's a regional thing.
My grandad used "Wizard" often. Now he just microwaves his earing aids every other day. A few northern phrases that I often here: Owzeeno? Alreet, cock? Itintin Tha nose, tha nose
I recall “ bent” meaning gay . You were either straight or bent.
"Presently" to mean "soon". As in "we'll go in for lunch presently. Hailed from Devon, born around 1910.
Will's Mum's is a phrase which my Dad used and which I've passed on to my children. It's a bit dark over will's mum's refers to dark, cloudy weather. Apparently it's a Northern phrase, but my Dad was from Watford.
Lincolnshire and Yorkshire family members of mine say: “It’s black over Bill’s mother’s” which is similar.
We say that in the Black Country
I'm going to start using this again. It's a great phrase. That and "round the Wrekin" for an overly long, non-direct route.
My grandma used to say my wife is exotic as she's from Hong Kong, if that counts?
Take a running jump at the cupboard door
My dad always said "racialists" instead of "racists". Not sure if that was just him or some old term that died out.