To think the expression 'like taking coals to Newcastle' isn't made up or posh

[cocoachannel]

DH and I were preparing to travel to my parents' house for Easter today, when DH suggested taking a bottle of wine for my Dad. I said we should get something else as it would 'be like taking coals to Newcastle'. (DPs have an impressive wine collection).

DH maintains that I have either made up the expression (despite showing him google results ), or it is something I know because 'I am posh' (which is a whole other debate in itself...).

Anyway, MN, please help me prove DH wrong

I've never heard of it before

I use it. I am not posh.

Yep, you right, DH wrong - neither made up nor posh. Educated, maybe - but not posh.

Or perhaps you just know people who know stuff.

Like selling snow to eskimos.... neither posh nor made up. But possibly archaic.

I am from Newcastle and i am posh and i totally knew what you were talking about before clicking on the thread

OP = right
OPs DH = 'wrang'

am-not really posh - just class being on MN as carte blanche to being posh

How extraordinary. Perfectly common phrase ime

Do you want a muffin or a meringue?
No, you're right, I want a muffin.

I am from "up north" and it is an expression my parent used, and i have always known. It certainly isnt posh, and comes along with phrases like "selling snow to eskimos"

Its a well known expression, nothing posh about it at all.

Never heard the phrase before

I've never heard it but I genuinely read this as coats to Newcastle.
I thought hmm yeah seems fair enough, them Geordies are renowned for never wearing a coat even when it's freezing!

You're right he's wrong. Perhaps we need to update it
I'm sure mn can come up with something witty and apt.

lovetats

my dad loves that one!

It's like taking biscuits to Mumsnet Towers

Not made up or posh. So so normal.

I know it and use it and I am Irish and definitely not posh!

Like taking scarves to Mumsnet

YANBU, it isn't made up, it's a very common saying and I don't get why someone who used it would be "posh"? .

A colleague of mine was once amused when I used the phrase "when push comes to shove". She was adamant that either I had made that up or it was "foreign".

carabos that is one i have used forever too. vair vair common in the NE

Actually it quite annoys me when people insist that stuff is "made up" just because they haven't heard it before. I used to work with a couple of women like that years ago, it didn't do them any favours to be sneering at people who had a wider command of the language than they did.
Very ignorant and small-minded of them.

I'm Australian and it's used where I'm from!

I'm in Newcastle but not a Geordie and have heard it loads (and I knew it's history too no idea why though)

And the best bit is, Kitty, that it's still appropriate here - Newcastle Australia is also a huge place for coal!

YANBU. It's not made up, and notposh either.

So what did you get your parents instead of the wine?