Words/phrases you have seen in books that you have never heard a real life person say

[OneUmberJoker]

Little high little low - stuart little

I have a friend who does that action. He isn’t a detective, but he does it when he’s thinking about the answer to a difficult question or trying to solve a problem.

Not in a book so forgive me but I’ve just seen the phrase “cin cin” written on a bar in Croatia and commented to my husband that’s fallen out of fashion as an alternative to cheers. It’s a bit Terry Thomas I think. I’m going to try and bring it back.

I thought it was chin chin, but just looked it up and see we write chin chin in English but other languages write cin cin but say it chin chin. It sounds so English, I thought it was something to do with lifting your glass up to your chin, I never knew it was actually Italian! I wonder if it has anything to do with cinzano?

I first saw it on a social media post alongside a photo of someone raising a glass, and thought it was an ironic "chin up, darling" in the manner of those really annoying status updates where people post photos of themselves on a sunbed with, "It's a hard life but someone has to do it."

By coincidence, I heard it IRL for the first time in ages a few days ago when my sister was telling me about a small irritating man in her workplace and we got into a discussion about the distinction between a twerp and a wee nyaff.

@NotMyRealAccountfortunately DH is Glaswegian. So I was able to ask him about wee nyaffs. From what he says, a wee nyaff is waaaaay worse than a twerp!

Were they pupils at Malory Towers? St Clairs?

No! A chick lit easy read throwaway novel. I've lost count of the number of books I read where it's used. I swear authors write phrases down when they read other books and replicate it in their own.

Going back to a pp's mention of demurring, I was surprised at the number of people who thought DEMUR was an obscure Wordle solution a few days ago. Perhaps because we don't say it in real life, but I see a lot of fictional demurring, usually in the past tense. I didn't like to say that I got it quite easily.

I was at a town fayre at the weekend, and a cocktail bar was called ‘Chin Chin’. Immediately thought of this thread!

I watched an episode of DNA Journey the other night and John Simm used Chin Chin as his toast. We’re going to notice it everywhere now aren’t we?!

I'd heard that cinzano is 100 years (so it means good health and long life essentially[, but that doesn't actually track with actual Italian words :D

Yes I also thought it was English but an internet search suggests Italian but based on a Chinese phrase qing qing which means please or I invite you.