General Chat

Following on from Zzzzz's thread.

When seeing an overdressed woman.
She's all done up like a fourpenny Ham Bone.

When seeing a romantic scene on TV
Here we go, love in the Four Ale Bar.

Mother-in-Law
When describing someone mean spirited
He/she is so mean they take your eyes, then come back for the sockets.

My mum would say

Fur coat no knickers for someone who seemed too sure of themselves

My gran had a variation on what your mum would say - Red shoes, no knickers.

If someone was tall, she'd say they had 'long bones'.

From my youth I rremember red hat no knickers Maggie

My Mum used to say you are not so daft as cabbage looking. But I am still not sure where that came from.

Dad used to say daft as a mess deck scrubber.

My mum would say of a woman rather overly dressed to impress "she's all done up like a dogs dinner."

Red hat and no drawers.

Lace curtains at the windows and kippers on the table.

When keep asking mum where something we got this

Up in nanny’s room behind the clock

My mums mantra was 'don't say anything'
So I didn't.
Her loss.
:-S

I think the different variations of the same saying must be regional. My Mum said the same sort of things as Shirley's mother and I think Shirley and I were both brought up in south London. Mum would also describe someone as "All fur coat and no knickers" and if you couldn't find anything it was "Behind the clock in nanny's room"

Yes I was brought up in charlton south east London

Dads side were all deptford and the men were barge builders on the Thames

Mum was born in hackney from Essex stock

They lived in charlton from 1912 and dad was mums next door neighbour
They married Xmas day 1929

You could be right about regional Vera.

North London. Up in Annies Room, on the mantlepiece, behind the clock.

Mom sayings -' daft ha-peth ' (someone silly) and ' looks like they have been dragged through a hedge backwards' (untidy person) as well as some already mentioned.

JG yes my Mum and Dad both used both those sayings and would also say soppy ha-Peth for somebody being affectionate.

Yep, daft ha-peth. Or soppy date.

Neither use nor ornament was another.

JustGinnie - my gran (Hampshire born & bred) used to say those things too.

My mum just used to dislike my saying South - ampton.
She tried to insist it was South - Hampton.
Fortunately, she never heard me (when I lived in Portsmouth) saying 'Portsmuff' :-D :-D

"ha-peth" is "half penny worth", meaning someone not all there.


"A' fur coat and nae knickers" was, and still is, often said disparagingly by Glasgow people about those in Edinburgh, especially those in Morningside, a well-off part of the city.
The implication was that the traditionally working-class Glaswegians were genuine people, whereas people in Edinburgh (according to Glaswegians) liked to think of themselves as refined and cultured, but were really no better than anyone else.


If I was reluctant to eat something as a child, my mother always said "Think of the refugees!"
I don't know which ones - presumably WW2 refugees.

Fur coat and no knickers - brings back memories.

Butty/buttie was the term Mum always used for a sandwich and it was not a common term in the area we moved to when I was a girl. It caught on quickly though, didn’t it!

Mum always called bread rolls ‘baps’ and in the area we moved to they were always known as buns. Not so long ago when I met school pals (the few remaining) for lunch, I asked for a sandwich (being polite, of course). :-D

The waitress brought a roll and when I said that I had not asked for a roll, she looked at me askance. I got through when I used the word’bun’.

Funny how our brains adjust to a variety of words and terms when we move, isn’t it.

Joy Louise - I went to 6 different primary schools - my elder sister went to about 3 primary schools, then a High school, Comprehensive, Secondary Modern, and finally a Grammar School! :-S

The other day, we were discussing the tactics we used, in an attempt to 'fit in'.
We both used to spend a week or two, just listening - listening to the dialect, the words /rhymes used in 'common' games, like ball games, skipping, and sussing out what 'tag', 'catch' or whatever was called, and the word used to leave the game to, for example, to go to the loo!

My first school was in Scotland - but we'd moved from Malta, so sounded quite 'posh'. The Scottish accent soon appeared - for survival :-0
Then we moved to a different part of Scotland - with a different dialect, then to another one.

The move from Scotland to Cornwall required quite a dialect change, as did the move from Cornwall to Devon, :-S :-S

I now have an annoying habit of taking on the accent/dialect of whoever I'm speaking to. Survival habits are hard to get rid of!

I agree about the change of accent/dialect when moving. I and my two children have done so. It made it much easier to fit in. OH’s accent has only very slightly changed but I think it is because we are now back on his home turf so he has slotted right in again.

My scouse dialect (not the words), which was never as broad as Cilla’s, disappeared within a couple of years of moving. The words I use that are different from most of those around me are those used by my parents. They are Liverpudlian and Essex words. My paternal grandmother who was local to where I now live died when Dad was five so he (and I by default) missed out on genuine local parlance and he was brought up by a father whose parents, grandparents and so on were all Essex-born (hence the ‘sweet’ usage I found in Southend which was the last place my paternal grandfather lived before moving north).

Maggie, did you find that your school friends ate differently from you too? When I was older, I was surprised to discover that men locally (not OH, I hasten to add, because it would have got him nowhere) seemed to expect a hot meal on the table after work and I was amazed to find out much later that my friends ate a different meal before their parents so only ever sat together for Sunday roast. I did not twig that at all when I was young.

My Dad was never unhappy with a salad when he came from work and, shiftwork permitting, we all sat down together every day. It really surprised me to find that others around me did not do that. When my children were young I carried out the evening meal tradition - all sitting down together to the same meal. It surprised me to find that some of my pals did not do that.