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Original poster

Words and phrases that you like and wish you'd hear more often (light hearted)

167 replies

ShockingBritain · 05/05/2026 09:42

Any phrases people would like hear more often?

After reading thread about phrases that give people 'rage'.

OP posts:
dailyconniptions · 11/05/2026 19:15

EsmeSusanOgg · 10/05/2026 20:05

Vaccinated with a grammar phone needle.

Gramophone, surely.

TheLivelyAzureHedgehog · 10/05/2026 21:42

‘10 o’clock and no’ a bairn washed!’ I use out at work all the time to confuse my mostly French and English colleagues

Christ on a bike! A favourite of my lovely Glaswegian flatmate in Uni days 😂.

OopsImUpsideDown · 10/05/2026 21:41

My late aunt when asked what she’d been up to today would reply
“just fussing and farting”.
Also my grandmother’s favourite saying when things went awry was
“it’s all gone cabbage wrong “

katmarie · 10/05/2026 21:27

Defenestrate. I endeavour to work that one into conversation regularly but it is tricky.

raspberrieswithchocolate · 10/05/2026 21:09

Dilly dallying

namechangingeasy · 10/05/2026 20:18

like many of the mentioned ones
Going pear shaped

D’oh just expressed perfectly for me and that moment of realisation that things have gone wrong

Windthebloodybobbinup · 10/05/2026 20:17

Lollygag
love this word

EmailsaysOOO · 10/05/2026 20:07

Ridonculous

EsmeSusanOgg · 10/05/2026 20:05

Vaccinated with a grammar phone needle.

EsmeSusanOgg · 10/05/2026 20:04

Lollygagging
Flibbertigibbet

dancehysterical55 · 10/05/2026 20:03

‘Oh, fiddlesticks’

mumofoneAloneandwell · 10/05/2026 20:00

My fave is Bellend

Mumsnet will ban me if I call someone that again 😪

dancehysterical55 · 10/05/2026 19:58

MaySheWillStay · 06/05/2026 21:20

@CousinBette I’m not as daft as I’m cabbage-looking.

I know that as ‘I’m not as green as I’m cabbage-looking.’

Me, too

dancehysterical55 · 10/05/2026 19:52

ComtesseDeSpair · 05/05/2026 15:25

“D’ye think I button up at the back?” spoken with a broad Glaswegian accent. I really like it, to me it sounds exactly like what it’s intended to describe.

Or ‘came up the Clyde on a banana boat’

Elsvieta · 10/05/2026 14:21

Sometimes when I see a person with tattoos all over their face or similar I hear my granddad (insert laconic Yorkshire accent): "The things you see when you haven't got your gun". And people who talked too much had "a mouth like t'parish oven". He was probably also one of the last to say thee / tha / thissen etc. And "yon", as in this thing, that thing and yon (more distant) thing. And "Are yer ears painted on?").

raspberrieswithchocolate · 09/05/2026 22:22

Heebie jeebies

NotAnotherScarf · 09/05/2026 22:18

Blidge as a exclamation of surprise. Also gert/gurt as a filler word as in gert big, gurt lush...all west country words

tourdefrance · 09/05/2026 22:15

I love outwith which I first heard from a Scottish colleague.

Oohanothername · 09/05/2026 21:57

FuzzyPuffling · 05/05/2026 13:26

Spiffing.

Spaffing. Love that word 😅

mizu · 09/05/2026 21:49

Another one for fiddlesticks. And my Nan also used to say butter fingers when she dropped something.

user2848502016 · 09/05/2026 21:45

Crumbs
Cripes
Good Heavens
Put that in your pipe and smoke it

Sgtmajormummy · 09/05/2026 17:37

I used to love watching Hacker T Dog with the DC. The way he spoke reminded me of DGF.
One of those was “the lav” for the toilet.

Jo1667 · 09/05/2026 16:47

Horselover90 · 07/05/2026 12:05

Gormless

This one is great. Other phrases connected to it are "yer great gorm" or "take no gorm" for take no notice. It's pronounced (in S Yorks) as "tek ner gorm".

Jo1667 · 09/05/2026 16:45

SerendipityCat · 07/05/2026 09:21

I do indeed, I'm from a small mill town north-west of Leeds. There were plenty of dialect speakers when I was growing up in the 60s (including my grandma), but they're all gone now. I try to keep the expressions alive as much as I can.

Show quote history

I'm originally from near Barnsley too but now live in the NE.
Despite my mam saying "if you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything at all", one of her phrases on seeing a couple who aren't very bonny looking is "well they're not spoiling anyone else's chances" 😃 the Geordie version of this is "why spoil two houses?"

Cartmella · 09/05/2026 16:43

I like wazzock, as previously mentioned, and also twerp. Both work best preceded by the word right.
I would also like to revive the 70s greeting wotcha / wotcher.

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