Teenagers and old fashioned phrases

[No17CherryTreeLane]

Would the teenagers in your life know what you meant if you asked them
"Are you courting?"

Spent time with extended family over the last week and I asked my 18 year old niece this question.
She looked puzzled and then asked what I meant 😁
Before I answered, we asked her 14 year old sister if she understood the phrase, who said "Yeah of course I know. It means are you going out with anyone!" and looked at her sister in disgust 😂

Any other gems you've come up with, to be met with looks of total bafflement?
(I'm mid 50s by the way, which practically translates to being older than Methuselah!)

I’m a similar age to you but haven’t heard anyone ask ‘are you courting’ since dear old nana asked me in my youth!

I saw ‘cut your coat according to your cloth’ on here recently. I bet few youngsters know what that means these days.

I’m not sure many would understand my username either.

I am clearly an old fuddy duddy

My late Grandad (born 1914 & had dementia) would ask very seriously literally every time I saw him, ‘You courting yet??’ From my mid teens lol.
The only other person I’ve heard use that phrase was my GCSE art teacher in the early 90s, and the class would just laugh at his old fashioned way of speaking.

I only ever heard ‘courting’ from a granny who died in around 1979 - in her late 80s!

She once told me that she had to dump (not that she used that word) a young man she was ‘walking out’ with, since ‘he tried to get his hand down my placket fastener!’ 😂
(in the days before zips…)

Yes

Had to explain the origin of ‘spend a penny’ to some twenty- plus people recently. They didn’t realise it meant you had to pay a penny to use a toilet.

I grew up in the 60s and the expression “spending a penny” made me cringe even then.

I'm Irish and my mum uses the expression "doing a line with" for courting.

She said it recently and I hadn't heard it for years, "the line was off", she said.
It really made me laugh!
Not sure what my kids would do with that one!

I’m Irish too and I had a very funny conversation with a 20-something Mancunian son of a friend about this phrase! And ‘doing a strong line’ when things were getting serious - he thought it was hilarious /made up

Just ask DD and her friend, both 14.
DD went eh I don't play tennis 😂
Her friend said do you mean am I dating someone.
So 50/50

My nana would as me born in 40s

I can remember being asked that a couple of times as an 80s teenager and even then it was very old fashioned. It sounds like something from WW2 to me.

I wouldn't expect a current teenager to have a clue.

I’m nearly 53 and while I know what it means it’s very old fashioned. I’d never use it. I don’t even associate it with my parents’ generation, but my grandparents

I bet he did. Doing a line does mean something completely different now and has done for quite a while

Also, 'stepping out with'.

That’s us Irish for ya …doing lines or craic/ck

😂

I don't know what that means and I'm 48!

I asked my daughter to "pull the chain" when she was little. We were in the toilet. She had no idea what I meant. I'm in my forties, so not that old!

I’m 51 and would phrase it as ‘are you seeing anyone?’. My Nan (1914-1987) would have called it ‘courting’! Some teenagers might recognise the phrase from books, but I wouldn’t expect it to be part of their vernacular.

For the love of god never, ever say "I will eat you under the table!"
I made this mistake loudly and in public. Dd, mortified, nearly fled the scene and turned an unusual shade of beetroot. It took me a few seconds to realise but now I can't unhear it.

My mum told that she had a boyfriend before my dad but had 'to throw him over' as he was tight with his money 😂I don't think that expression is used much anymore.

I explained this just recently to the Gdcs!

Though TBH it’s not all that long ago that it cost you 20p* for a wee at Waterloo Station, though I think they’re free now.

*and 1p is 2.5? times an old penny.

A teenage driving pupil of mine had never heard of a ford, as in where a river crosses a road (as opposed to a Ford car).

When I was a teenager in the 90s, I used to say "for Pete's sake" which I had heard in the 1960s TV show Thunderbirds. It drew some derisory sneering from my peers!

"Courting" - very old-fashioned, although as a child, I remember learning the song "Frog went a-courting".

I like to impress teenagers with the phrase "Visual Display Unit", or VDU: only people of a certain age will know what that meant (what we now call a computer monitor). I use it as a mnemonic to remember a mathematical formula, which contains the letters VDU.

My dd has always been a reader and she read a lot of old books, so I think she would understand phrases like this, but I also think she would be bemused to hear someone using them in modern Britain!

You are around the same age as me, OP,, and I would be amazed to hear anyone of my generation using that phrase. Were you just saying it to mess with her?

My did had never heard the word ‘dear’ to mean expensive. Nor had she heard to send someone to Coventry.

I bet certain phrases to do with money would confuse teenagers.
Make ends meet.
Balance the books.