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?

I used to stand in doorways not meaning to stay in a room but getting pulled into what was on TV or the conversation happening. My Dad used to say "stop haunting me" 😆

If my mum thought something was a rip-off she'd call it a "swizz".

"Oooh, what a swizz!".

She looked like Lady Docker. Anyone who was glammed up.

Or… Robert’s your fathers brother (as my dad says)

...and Fanny's your aunt.

Sandwich short of a picnic (not all there)

My mum says this! And so do I!

"Gotta see a man about a dog", sometimes accompanied by a tap of a forefinger on the side of the nose, meaning, I'm off to do some dirty deed...( I think it's Cockney, but could be wrong).

"Dressed by the parish", I literally was; my father was the vicar and my mother had first dibs at the jumble sale.

"She's like a Whirling Dervish", said to my mother by my aunt about my sister, who simply bounced off the walls, as a child.

A sandwich short of a picnic

‘Off to see a man about a dog’…used to always think my parents were actually gonna come home with a puppy 😅

‘He’ll have a canary’….something my mum always says even now, normally talking about my dad when he finds out how much money she’s spent shopping

He was from Kent, how about your family?
We always used to protest that it would be funny so of course we would laugh!

Aww, were you disappointed a lot. 😨

Cor Blimey!

Hes from Brixton. I think its said to denote that you're a bit silly, giggly and easily pleased. Ive never met anyone that knew what I was talking about when I said it.

See also:

half sharp
not the sharpest tool in the box
lights on but nobody’s home
knitting on one needle
daft as a brush
bloody gormless

’ooh she’s a brassy cat that one’ meaning a bit of a Jezebel.

‘she’s not got all her chairs at home’ meaning somebody wasn’t quite mentally sound.

‘He’s got to stand on tuppence to look o’er thre’pence’ He’s short.

‘up and down like a bride’s nightie’ self explanatory

And the best profanity ever, ‘he’s a shitehawk him’.

Cracking thread!

I know what you mean… was horrified to learn the origins of (getting down to the) nitty gritty 😣

I love this thread!!!

He wouldn't stir himself to break a stick … similar to… wouldn’t lift a finger!

Had away and shite (your talking nonsense)

like a fart in a hurricane (ineffective)

let that be a lesson to you!

He couldn’t stop a pig in a Ginnel (useless at something)

as much use as a chocolate fire guard

my belly thinks my throats been cut (I’m hungry)

im dropping through my knickers (I’m hungry)

all mouth and no trousers (means they are all talk)

Eeeh pet (offering sympathy)

Gan canny (be careful)

who’s she when she’s at home (who are they?)

don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

All fur and no knickers. (Also a bit of a Jezebel).

‘On the continent’ rather than ‘in Europe’

OMG well I won't be using that again, having googled it. 47. Male. West Midlands. Never knew.

Me neither, wow. According to google ‘dictionaries are coy about explaining the history’. Strange.

https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/i5oc42/the_origin_of_the_idiom_rule_of_thumb_did_not/

Rule of thumb might be ok...

“You daft ha’porth”.

"Can't do right for doing wrong", when everything you try seems to end in some kind of unfortunate outcome.