Phrases you don’t hear much any more

[BarbaraVineFan]

I was just thinking about the phrase ‘I speak as I find’, which my gran always used to use to mean that she was always honest (sometimes blunt!) and realised that it has been years since I heard it! Any other phrases like this that used to be really common, but now are a dying breed?

"Going steady" for being in a relationship. I remember this in the 70s

You get what you get and you don’t get upset.

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

I’d rather gouge out my eyes with a blunt spoon (in response to something you really don’t want to do).

Yikes. I just learnt that now (and I am 47 years old). Not that I have even thought of the word in decades. Your comment about eenie meenie had me thinking through what it could be.

The N word and extremely racist.

We sang "catch a fish and bite its toe" at primary in the 70s

She couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery (thanks Dad!).

It's a bit dark over Jack's mothers (because my grandad was called Jack).

I was just going to stat a thread, and then saw this one 😀

In my last job the nice HR lady was Marie*. I didn't meet her on the first day, and noticed that whilst people mentioned "Marie" there was someone whose email was "Marie-Claire". Not wanting to upset, I asked the MD, and they said "Oh. Maire-Claire is her Sunday name".

"Sunday name" ? Not an expression I'd heard before (and I am ancient).

I've heard of "Sunday best", of course. I did realise there was a specific version for names.

Is this a thing ? Was it ever ? Is it regional (possibly midlands) ?

(Obviously "AI" can't help. All it knows about is where Sunday got it's name from).

Personally I like it - despite only having heard it in the twilight of life.

Yes! I remember the first time my dad said this when I had been begging for a dog for years and saving all my pocket money to pay for one (from the age of three). I thought he had finally relented. Everyone laughed at me and explained that he just meant he was "going to spend a penny"(another lost phrase). It took me 8 years of constant pleading to get my dog. They didn't let me pay for him, though - he was my 11 plus (passing) present.

I still say ‘Bob’s yer uncle and Fanny’s yer aunt.’ My kids have gone from thinking it was funny when they were small to being highly embarrassed. So of course I say it a lot🤣

My MIL uses loads of old expressions. Sometimes it seems like she just strings them together as conversation.

’There’s no pockets in a shroud’ if you’re mean with money.

’If you died with a face like that nobody would wash it’

’Smile and give your face a holiday’

Not very nice, but if someone had a lazy eye, they had ‘one eye going to the shop and the other one coming back with the change’

'I'll swing for you'
I always thought this meant swing a punch, but it actually means swing from the gallows.

We call it your naughty name- cos you only hear it from your mum when you've done something bad

This meant my dad was going to the pub usually!

Are you my sister? 🤣

Don't spoil the ship for a h'peth of tar - don't try and save £5 on a £1000 job with the risk of ruining it

Going to splash my boots - going for a wee

‘Floozie’ would seem to have died the death - I rather like it.

Ditto ‘flibbertigibbet’.

Eee, look at that Bobby Dazzler!

Ey-up

"Take your coat off when you come in, or you won't feel the benefit!" (Cue me as a curious child going, "But if ladies used to wear house-coats, how did they feel the benefit when they went outside?!")

Picking and piking

Maungy

Flummoxed

Mithering

Were you born in a barn? ("No, but Jesus was!")

Put wood in't hole!

It's like Blackpool Illuminations in 'ere!

Stairs being called "dancers"

Yacking on at me (i.e. someone who goes ON and ON at you)

"You look like a house end in that!"

Faffing about/a faff

S/he's in fine fettle!

Erm... there will be a lot more, but that's probably because I moved away from the Yorkshire/Lancashire borderlands and have had to edit my speech to suit!

I give you .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_(artwork)

Ha ha. I suspect there's a lot of us with this experience!

😂😂

I’d never heard it until a few years ago, but read that it’s a reference to Shakespeare* country (around Stratford upon Avon) so meant dark clouds looming in that sort of area.
*Will (Bill) and his mother

But how true that is have no idea!

Never heard that one!

I remember 'going to see a man about a dog' (still don't know what it means)
'It's like Blackpool illuminations in here' (my mum liked a lot of light in the living room and my sister would come in and switch lights off)
Strewth/Gordon Bennett/for Pete's sake/for the love of Pete (my dad was a primary school teacher and had a whole lexicon of words that aren't swear words but are satisfying in the same way)
Stick and stones...
'She/he were looking at me gone out' for someone who was looking at you gormlessly, usually someone working in a shop or similar when you asked for something.

Catch a tiger by the toe. Except it wasn't a tiger. Google at your peril, extreme racism lies ahead.