...to think that this expresson is dying out?

[WalkDontWalk]

On another thread someone used the expression 'taking the mick'. And I thought, 'I used to hear that all the time when I was a kid. But I rarely do now.'

So I started to think of others that my dad used but my kids don't.

'Having a kip' or 'I was akip'.

'Yikes' (My daughter says I'm the only non-cartoon that says 'yikes'.)

'Swinging the lead'

'Bunking off'. (Daughter: 'Never heard that. Sounds rude')

'Going Dutch' (Daughter. 'Nope. No idea. Is that rude too?')

'Haven't the foggiest.'

These were all in use in London fifty years ago. Maybe they were always regional.

You’ve got egg on your chin - discrete way of saying your fly is unzipped.

Don't shoot the hand that feeds you

Yes, but not for a while.

Nah I’m younger than 50 and familiar with these

We use to ask our dad where he was going and it was always “to see a man about a dog”.Also you having a bubble was another common one

Still use that one a lot, and 'what's that got to do with the price of fish'. Both very useful phrases. We have kips too.

Gorden Bennett is a regular visitor. 'Guts for garters' I thought was one of Shakespeare's, but appear to be mistaken, would make sense to be from around that era though, when men wore garters.

I use the Marie-Celeste one, and 'it's like Blackpool illuminations in here'.

Fair to middling is said where I live in rural Ireland 😄

Nonce, in what context? Doesn’t it mean peadophile?

My DC were dumbfounded by me saying something was 'out of order' (for unacceptable etc).

I had no idea it wasn't a phrase used by the young 'uns.

We still use all those phrases in the North.

I use ‘taking the mick’ because I don’t like to swear so don’t like saying ‘taking the piss’. Having a kip I still hear. Bunking off I hear occasionally

funny you should mention her, I came across this extract which surprised me in a regency novel:

that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome, hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached his twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea, because he was stupid and unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved; seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted... He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him, by calling him 'poor Richard,' been nothing better than a thick-headed, unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name, living or dead.”
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

My mum (Scottish origin) uses fair to middling. But doesn't that mean mediocre, not worthy of comment?

Your Mum is losing her marbles.
Syrup (of figs) is a wig.

I do like the Gen Z expression as said by my teen the other day

-taking a fat minute

As in taking a while to do what needed doing, when I asked him why his room was not clean!

Losing your marbles is from the lost boys, Peter Pan.

Yes, and wife is 'trouble and strife'.

Oh, we used "Snow's falling down south" for the same thing - funnily enough, in the south of England!

Chinny reckon

Anyone mentioned Piffy yet?

I always liked this expression - a woman I worked with from the North of England always used it and it amused me:

'She knows how many beans make five.'

A Spanish woman I worked with would also be:

'Starving like Marvin.'

Who's Marvin?

Same, re Marie-Celeste and Blackpool illuminations, and conversely if it's dark I say "It's like the black hole of Calcutta in here!" mainly because a teacher of mine used to say it...never really occurred to me to wonder what it actually was 😁

I also say "This is buttering no parsnips" to mean "This is getting nothing done/making no progress". No-one EVER knows what that means and I honestly don't know where I got it from - maybe 1950s Mancunian family?

”IFITS” was the response when asking what was for tea/dinner, as in “if it’s there you can eat it and if it’s not you can’t.’
Used to drive me crazy when my parents used to say it but I now say it to mine 😂

'Were you born in a barn?' When you hadn't shut the door.

'Put the wood in the hole' When being told to shut the door.

Bonking

Flippin’ ‘eck

Blithering idiot

Brass monkeys

Half cut

Looks like you’ve been through a hedge backwards.
Looking like the wreck of the Hesperus.

I must’ve been a scruffy child!!