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Can you share your pithy, old-fashioned sayings?

163 replies

JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff · 23/07/2025 21:11

DS is 7 and has a very folkloric imagination. He is always coming out with sayings that he has invented but that sound for a sec like they might be real.

I am going to make him a list of real proverbs and sayings as I think he'd get a kick out of it.

I'm starting with "many a mickle makes a muckle".... can you help me by adding your favourites???

OP posts:
Cattenberg · 24/07/2025 13:09

Many a cruel word spoken in jest

I thought it was, "many a true word spoken in jest".

deeahgwitch · 24/07/2025 15:07

He’d / She’d peel an orange in his pocket ( so he wouldn’t have to share it ) said about people in a county in Ireland where its occupants are thought to be particularly mean/tight.
He / She wouldn’t give you the steam of his/her piss. Again portraying meaness.
A dumb priest never got a parish - if you don’t speak up you won’t get what you want.
It wasn’t off the ground he licked it - meaning it’s an inherited trait.

Timeforatincture · 24/07/2025 16:41

Timeforaglassofwine · 23/07/2025 21:21

You are a Midlander too then? 😆

No! My nan used to say it and she was a cockney!

mamaduckbone · 24/07/2025 16:44

A blind man on a galloping horse wouldn't notice (when something is a bit slapdash)

Cough up chicken, it might be a gold watch.

StrawberryThief1930 · 24/07/2025 16:59

the squeaky wheel gets the oil (don't ask, don't get)

wouldn't touch it with a barge pole

Timeforatincture · 24/07/2025 17:13

A pp mentioned "smells like a pox doctor's clerk" for some lad who'd overdone the Lynx. I'd not heard the phrase in that form, but "got up like a pox doctor's clerk" is one we use to describe the over- lavishly dressed.

Also, this isn't a well known phrase, but it always tickles me when my dad says of anyone known to enjoy their food a little too much : " I'd hate to meet him with a knife and fork in his hands".

SomethingFun · 24/07/2025 17:36

I want doesn’t get.

S/he wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire (mean and uncaring)

S/he couldn’t run a bath (useless at organising anything, also a piss up in a brewery)

If you’ve been to Tenerife, s/he’s been to elevenerife - someone who’s experience is always more dramatic/ important/ special than yours

If I was on the moon, I turn round and you’d be behind me - me to my husband every time I try and do anything in my house 😁

MissBridgetJones · 24/07/2025 21:33

I'm not half as green as I'm cabbage looking! My mum used to say this ALL the time.

Nanalisa60 · 24/07/2025 22:17

She’s a nippy sweetie!!

Cattenberg · 25/07/2025 00:39

This coat'll see me out.

You're so sharp you'll cut yourself.

A little bird told me.

The answer to that is spherical and in the plural.

coxesorangepippin · 25/07/2025 00:56

I'll have your guts for garters

Hold your horses (slow down)

Jump up kitchen door and a bit off the latch (nothing to eat)

Up them dancers (get upstairs)

Trouble at'mill (work/general problems)

Cattenberg · 25/07/2025 01:28

Oops, as this is for a seven-year-old, forget "spherical and in the plural".

Allseeingallknowing · 26/07/2025 18:54

As the actress said to the Bishop…
In of the mouths of babes
In vino Veritas
Like/don’t like the cut of your jib

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