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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:
MrsMoastyToasty · 06/05/2026 22:54

Reticule. It just sounds nicer than handbag.

B0D · 06/05/2026 22:54

My Granny used to say “eee, fancy!” When she came across something unusual

Thingsthatgo · 06/05/2026 22:31

I really like the word esophagus. I hardly ever need to use it though.
It has been pointed out to me that I use the word ‘super’ like someone out of an Enid Blyton novel, which I am not unhappy about!

Muddlemummy · 06/05/2026 22:24

Kerfuffle?

wheredidiputmyglasses · 06/05/2026 22:21

she looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. If someone looks a mess. I’m all upside down and don’t know if I’m coming or going. Discombobulated. If my dad thought someone was talking rubbish he’d tell them to go and boil their head. If somewhere is a distance you’d say he went twice round the Wrekin and back again. I’m from the West Midlands

trainedopossum · 06/05/2026 22:14

My very sweet and sensitive auntie used to say ‘Oh my stars!’ or ‘my heart!’
I don’t like ‘Oh my god’, would love to hear ‘My stars!’ instead

trainedopossum · 06/05/2026 22:10

MaySheWillStay · 06/05/2026 21:35

I say ‘drat’ and ‘rats.’

Years of working with children means I am trained not to swear.

Lol in an effort to avoid swearing in front of their small children my friends adopted a kind of screwball comedy vocabulary, clowns and knuckleheads etc.
Knucklehead is actually a satisfying mouthful if you’re trying not to say fucking arsehole or similar.

The6thQueen · 06/05/2026 22:05

‘Shiver me timbers’, instead of shit. One of my students once said it and it’s always tickled me 🤣

Greenknightsuccess · 06/05/2026 22:00

I like it when people say “Cheerio!” For goodbye. Haven’t heard it for a long time though.

Moll2020 · 06/05/2026 22:00

I’ll be there now in a minute!

LondonSymphony · 06/05/2026 21:58

When I was a kid, a lot of people used “wazzak” as an insult. Seems to have died out in common parlance.

I’ve always liked the phrase “not my circus, not my monkeys”.

igelkott2026 · 06/05/2026 21:45

Everygoodnameisgone · 06/05/2026 21:22

Kerfuffle

I picked up the expression "kerfuffle queue" from here (for the queue you get in and it's always the wrong one).

DH and I have since extended it to people who get on our trains at Clapham Junction because they are often coming from Gatwick airport, the trains are already busy, they have large cases, kids, prams etc and there's no space for them so it causes a kerfuffle.

wheresthesnowgone · 06/05/2026 21:45

Have a great rest of your day and a great rest of your week Blush

drspouse · 06/05/2026 21:36

My grandmother would always say people would have "16 fits and conniptions".

MaySheWillStay · 06/05/2026 21:35

I say ‘drat’ and ‘rats.’

Years of working with children means I am trained not to swear.

38woman · 06/05/2026 21:31

Drat

MaySheWillStay · 06/05/2026 21:24

SerendipityCat · 06/05/2026 19:12

My husband occasionally threatens to lead a one-man revival of “going for a slash”, as it was the favoured variant of “going for a pee’ when he was a teenager. He also uses ‘coming down like stair rods” when it’s raining heavily and has been known to call people - affectionately- a “daft ha’porth”.

I rather like “champion”, as mentioned by another poster, and even though David Dickinson grossly overused it during his fifteen minutes of fame, “bobby dazzler”. (I can still hear my grandma saying it when I was dutifully paraded in front of her in my new grammar school uniform, “eeh lass, tha’s a reight bobby dazzler!” A nice little fragment of memory.)

Do you have West Riding connections, @SerendipityCat?

Combining two similar phrases from upthread, I know “Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.”

I’m from near Barnsley and Lancashire, and a friend is from Bradford, although we have both lived down south for about fifty years.
We occasionally use phrases from our childhood just to amuse each other.

Everygoodnameisgone · 06/05/2026 21:22

Kerfuffle

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.’

Ipollita · 06/05/2026 21:20

I’m on a one woman crusade to bring ‘tis back.

CousinBette · 06/05/2026 21:16

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

I don’t boil my cabbages twice.

I’m going to see a man about a dog….

REALLYbigpigeon · 06/05/2026 21:15

Crazy daisy and sure indeedy

ThreeTescoBags · 06/05/2026 21:12

NoraLuka · 05/05/2026 16:37

My nanna used to call everyone chucklebutty, it means love/darling over in the East Midlands.

Aww. My dad, also East Mids, uses chucklebutty ❤️

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · 06/05/2026 21:10

I heard one on the celeb traitors that I've not heard before: don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining. Love it!

jackspratswife01 · 06/05/2026 21:09

mercurial

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