Expressions grandparents use (or used)?

[TriggersBroom]

My kids think it's funny when their grandparents say 'bathers' meaning swimming costumes. Also 'five and twenty to four'.

Suntan cream is another odd one, as nobody is trying to get a tan these days.

Any other great examples of grandparent speak?

I like 'a lick and a promise' when someone is too tired or ot's too late to wash properly at bedtime.

My late grandad used to say 'A little bit of what you fancy does you good'.

Whenever anything looks a bit ropey (a dropped stitch or wonky icing on a cake) my granny always says: 'well a blind man would be glad to see it and the man on the man on the galloping horse will be going too fast'. My mum says this too. And so do I.

My MIL uses 'a lick and a promise'

DH's family is very very frugal (potent blend of Yorkshire and scotish heritage), his granny's motto is 'if in doubt do without'. Not something my generation is very good at this.

My grandma uses the word stoned to mean drunk.
This would always cause me to cry with laughter as a teenager to hear her say "I was so stoned I couldn see straight."

My Granny says five and twenty to also. She has an oldfashioned way of pronouncing 'wh' with a slight f in front

"arms up for a good girl"

so she could pull our jumpers off.

My Granny used to say 'skin a rabbit' as she pulled our jumpers off over our heads.

When eating hot food she said 'tinies and blow', meaning you should take a little bit and blow it.

My grandpa called a bin a 'wappy' which i think may be an old naval term.

Anyone else heard these or is it just my strange family?!

My grandad just to describe a snack as "something to keep body and soul together".

'There's nowt so queer as folk save thee and me.'

And I'm not too sure about thee

Ha! Yes!

'skin a rabbit' - my Grandma used to say this too, and I had completely and utterly forgotten about it

Thank you Jojay!

"Courting" as in "are you courting yet?" (dating)

"Y is a crooked letter and you can't straighten it" if asked "Why?".

"Half past a quarter to just gone, knocked down a bobby at The Cross" was the reply to anyone daft enough to ask the time.

Not mine but a friend's grandmother used to exclaim 'speed the plough!'

If I knew what context to use it in I'd use it too.

Another favourite of mine for some reason came from an older couple we knew as children, when talking about how things were in the past they would always use 'years gone by (... this was all fields)' - a phrase I love to describe the non specific passing of time. They used to use it almost as one word.

Remembered another one, when asked her age, my Grandma always said:

"Older than my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth"

and when asked to play she would say:

"I've got a bone in my leg" ?!?!

'Two jumps at the cupboard door &a bite of the knob' - what my nan used to say when I asked what was for tea.

Harriet...
My mum used to say
'Y is a crooked letter and you should know better' and
'Half past, quarter to, getting on for nearly'

She still says frocks for dresses.

I do still say 'taping something off the telly'...!

My grandad always used to talk mostly in Cockney rhyming slang... Up the apples for going to bed, wearing a whistle on a Sunday, called my Nan his trouble... I could go on...

Oh we have tons. My Nan always used to call her going clothes a 'costume', as in "I'll put my costume on and we'll go". As a kid I was always bitterly disappointed when she failed to re-appear dressed as Yogi Bear or something.

'a face'd stand clogging' meaning you could hit it with a clog and it wouldn't look any different (ie ugly) or just plain old hard faced.

AnnTwacky for old fashioned, powsy for badly made. I could be here all night tbh.

Skin the rabbit! Haven't heard that in ages!! 'Speed the Plough' I always interpreted as 'good wishes' or 'hope all will be well'. I remember my dad's aunts saying it when I was little.

A common phrase among the adults in our family is 'little pitchers have big ears' meaning 'the children are listening' followed by a swift change in the topic of conversation. I've asked my mum where that came from and she has no idea, she learned it from her mum. I still use it.

My nan would say "I don't cook my cabbages twice" if asked to repeat something.

There'll be a pig's foot there in the morning. For any injury. Adored my grandad so much.

Little pigs have big ears is what we say.
I've got a bone in my leg, my dad would say, and now I say to my kids

My grannys refered to being cold as being perished. Like "come by the fire, you look perished".

My grandad used to have lots but my favourite was always what he would say if he found something particularly funny:
"I haven't laughed so hard since my mother caught her tit ib the mangle"

Or if he was particularly busy/asked to do something the minute he sat down:
"I'm up and down like a pair of whores draws!"

Took me a good few years to appreciate those!