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?

It would have been a shame to spoil two houses with them- said about unpleasant married couples where each was as bad as the other.

Not exactly a saying but “If your bob don’t give our bob that bob that your bob owes our bob, our bob’ll give your bob a bob in’t eye”.

Ah, I heard that as "they don't spoil a pair".

Title of a Chas & Dave song. My DM used to say it to me.

Thats where I first saw that phrase too. I thought they meant literally!

My mum said this, she came from rural Surrey.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

Bob's your uncle and Fanny's your aunt.

It originated from the civil war so it was based on a literal thing.

DH aunt always used to say 'cough it up, might be a gold watch' if you were choking.

When my mum, who's 86, used to go to the cinema with my dad before they were married, her mum used to say "keep your hand on your ha'penny" Meaning don't let there be any funny business ☺️🤭

Keep your elbows off the table.

That was a big one from my mum when I was a kid!

This really irritates & saddens me - not you, but the way we're all afraid of being judged by the self-appointed censors of everyday speech.

Half their reasons excuses for declaring our words offensive are made up, anyway.

• Rule of thumb obviously refers to using your thumb as a ruler (to measure). There was never a law, declaration or speech about the thickness of a rod to beat your wife.
• There is zero evidence, written or otherwise, that the word 'nigritique' even existed, let alone as a common expression for slave debris. Gritty means exactly the same as granular, as used in business nowadays. It's cute to add 'nitty'.
• Ring-a-ring-of-roses is all about dying from smallpox or scarlet fever, right? Sure, if either of them were known to make you sneeze. It's just a daft rhyming game that made kids laugh.

I bet at least half the gloomy folklore about popular sayings originates from some smart-arse getting carried away while slightly drunk, little realising their entertaining faux factoid would empower a generation of sneering micro-dictators.

TLDR: Next time somebody 'educates' you that You 👏 Can't 👏 Say 👏 That 👏 because <insert horrified factoid> - ask for evidence, and not from Urban Dictionary or Social Justice Wikiwank.

... or archaically inform them they've got more front than Blackpool, are all mouth and no trousers, and should wind their neck in before they catch an axe 😉

Sending someone to Coventry means more than just ignoring them, it means complete ostracisation.

Expressions which amuse my teenage ds:

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Storm in a teacup
Make a mountain out of a molehill
Nose to the grindstone / Shoulder to the wheel
Hobson's Choice
Teach your grandmother to suck eggs

My granny used to say ‘She’s got a voice like a cracked pancheon’.
‘She’s all red hat and no nickers’ was another I remember her saying.

Brilliant! So well put.

'All to the one side like Gourock

Love these. So many memories.

My contribution:

He thinks he’s it, but he’s not, he’s shit - and he’s not even that when he’s wiped up.

You’re pecking my head. - meaning someone is being irritating

You daft apeth.

There’s no accounting for taste.

Buggeration! - an exclamation when you’ve stubbed your toe, or suddenly realised you have forgotten something

My mum would say

Jesus H Christ !!
Jesus wept
you make an excellent door but less of a window (blocking tv)
it’s like the blind leading the blind
deaf as a door knob

I always thought ring o ring of roses was referring to the Plague.

Not a word to Bessie.

I use so many of these, particularly the cat's mother one. Instinctive.

I also always instinctively say, say 'double or drop' when someone trying to hold too many items.

My mum says this!!

You can go somewhere else…

”well, I’ll go to our front gate.”

"double or drop' when someone trying to hold too many items."

Mt granny called that the lazy man's burden