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?

Sending people to Coventry, it was used frequently at school in the 1970’s
I remember reading this phrase in a book like Mallory Towers or similar. I wondered for years if Coventry was a real place.

Who's she, the cats mother
We still use this, also if people are 'getting above their station' ( another phrase we use) we would say ' who does she think she is, Queen of Sheba!'

He's so mean he'd nip a currant in two.

‘Use you common sense’
Seems as rare as hens teeth these days!

You canna see green cheese

I don’t know the real origin. It was said to be because Coventry was bombed in WW2, so not a place you’d want to go to, but I believe the saying predates that. It means to ignore someone, in case you haven’t heard it before!

Cheap at half the price - never made sense to me

Stone the crows - exclamation of surprise

"I speak as I find" became "I tell it like it is". In both cases people are trying to make out they are just being transparent with a positive slant, when in fact they're being a complete bitch, and they know it.

I know I have my faults, but blurting out the base-line undiluted truth to someone is very much something I would only do with great care and on a case-by-case basis. This could be why a few years back someone I was with on a training course roared laughing after another person had asked me what I thought of the way she'd been torn off a strip or two by one of the tutors.

I agreed that said tutor was exceptionally rude and I wouldn't have liked it either But as I said to my other colleague as soon as we were out of earshot, she absolutely deserved it for what she'd said to him in the first place...I just didn't need to be the one to tell her.

I was about to use the phrase ‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat’ the other day, and then thought ‘ewwww!!!’😅

Heavens to Mergatroid

I have heard it but never understood why there!

That’s made me remember one of my mum’s :

‘You look like the wild woman of Borneo’ 😂

Hair like rats’ tails.
If you break your leg, don’t come running to me.
Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about.

Room too dark? 'It's like the black hole of Calcutta in here...'

Too many lights on? 'It's like Blackpool in here...'.

https://www.countryfile.com/people/historical-figures/sent-to-coventry

Aw fur coat and nae’ nickas!! (Geordie accent required)

You'd laugh to see a pudding crawl (said with a strong cockney accent)

I have never ever met anyone who says this or knew of their family saying this or knows what it means.

My dad says it all the time.

Fine words butter no parsnips

I speak as I find - it’s just an excuse to be rude

Whats for tea? Shit with sugar (My Nan always said that)

Born in a barn

Look what the cat dragged in

I want doesn’t get

Gone for a Burton
many a slip twixt cup and lip
well I’ll be blown!
it’s black over bill’s mothers
you can take the man out of the bog but you can’t take the bog out of the man

My dad also says 'what am I chopped liver', or 'what am I scotch mist', if he feels hes being ignored or disregarded or his views ignored in a conversation or something

Manys the slip the twixt and the lip is title of a Northern record funnily enough.

I just love ‘ any port in a storm’
no idea why but if I can use it, I will ….

It’s like the Black Hole of Calcutta in here!

Ha ha! My mum and dad used to say “ it’s like talking to a brick wall!” If they thought I was being moody also “ cat got your tongue?”

Such a great phrase - makes me laugh 😆