You daft apeth

Ooh Dawn that's interesting: I got 'you make a better door than a window' if blocking the TV. "Were you born in a barn?" was used if you left a door open.

Standing like a spare part sounds like a polite version of 'standing like a fart in a trance' which I love!

We used to say you think your chocolate but your poo in school.

So if someone is full of themselves still say he thinks he's chocolate.

Something knocks something into a cocked hat. Love that one.

My mum rolls her eyes and says pop thinks he's as flashy as a bonne marche shirt. Which was a shop considered very swishy in her day.

Or if someone runs about a bit rolls her eyes and says ooooo he's like a whirling dervish. I had to google that a while back and I think it's a crazy Turkish dance.

Reprint I presume it means the same as 'standing there like a spare part'. Have no clue what a piffy or a rockbun actually is though!

Reminds me of 'ooh you're neither use nor ornament'.

Oh and if you were blocking the idiot box (telly) or something you'd get 'you weren't born in St Helens, were you?' bellowed at you. A reference to the glass making industry there.

I only found out relatively recently that the Hesperus was a boat.

Daft ha'porth is a favourite here too.

Other archaic phrases I seem to use more and more:
Mardy gowk
Face like a wet weekend
All fur coat and no knickers
Describing someone as 'soor-faced' - either DD in a sulk or a miserable adult.

I love the description of someone as 'a long drink of water' - fairly dull and a bit of a drip

"stop standing there like piffy on a rockbun" and "I was standing there like piffy on a rockbun"

I never knew what piffy was! or why they would stand on a rockbun in the first place!!
Interestingly, I heard it from a stranger (at a party) early this year and asked if they had any idea of the origins.Nope!!

So if anyone does happen to know...... I'm standing here eagerly anticipating an answer, like piffy on the proverbial

catinboots I always assumed an apeth was a big ape .

My Grand Father said 'Daft Apeth' and 'mardy'.

Loved them and miss him every time I hear these sayings.

I have never heard "jammy Arab" but used to hear "cheeky Arab" a lot.

I only learned quite recently on here that an 'apeth' wasn't a little ape

Ratbag! kirjava

I love this thread

Lovecat - do our families must know each other. YY to wreck of the hesparus, mithering and jammy arabs. I also got 'you're like a wandering jew' if i was drifting around aimlessly

A lot of my friends never got these at home....I think because my dad was a bit older than most.

I am rather fond of 'it swings in roundabouts,' said it to my class once to utter incomprehension! My DM used to say 'come on you 3, form 4s' no idea where that comes from! Used to being called a daft ha'porth too. I call my class waffles, doughnuts and heffalumps!

My mother uses almost all of the above.

Job's comforter is another one of hers.

Feeling as old 'as Methusalah'

Ratbag!

We also have a family-only one that comes from my mum's childhood best friend and her habit of bringing her back a hideous ornament from their family holiday each year. "A present from Rhyl" is the phrase used to describe something utterly useless that normally you'd chuck away but manners/something else prevents you :)

I love mithering, it's so northern.

I am from the west county, we call gym shoes daps, people from other parts of the country look at the word and/or take the piss.

"Bomsytit"

I still say 'a tin of fizzy pop'! People look at me like I should be on display somewhere...

We used to have a pop man that delivered. Our milkman was not into diversification.

'get your neb out' as in 'don't be so nosy'

'going down t' ginnel' as in ' I'm going via the back street'

'chips wibbits' as in 'chips with batter scraps'

DH is a southerner, I wind him up all the time with northern phrases

I used looking like the Wreck of the Hesperus last week to some twenty-somethings and they looked at me like '....what?'

In our family we used to say Wild Woman of Borneo until Jonathan Ross (I think) popularised that cheesy film Wild Women of Wongo in the mid-80's, so that's what we tend to say now :)

A local one where I grew up was 'don't stand there like one of Lewises', which was a reference to the shop dummies in the window of Lewises Department Store in Liverpool (and not, as is commonly assumed, the nekkid statue on the front of the building with the enormous willy).

One my mum thankfully no longer says is 'you jammy Arab' to describe someone lucky. I'm not sure where Arab came into it, she's Irish and grew up in the Midlands...

We also use 'mither' for bother (as in 'sorry to mither you') which isn't heard so much these days.

Or if there is no pop in the house I tell dd to drink some cooperation pop.

Pop! That is also so old fashioned. Like bottles of panda pop which the milkman used to deliver.

Get stuffed is such a retro insult I think.