Sayings from the Old Country

[limey]

Originally Posted by SamIam

"A kiss without a mustache is like a soup without salt" - what my Mom said to me when she met one of my boyfriends who had a mustache.

Or "beef" (no jokes here, please) "without mustard", as my mum said.

[DanaC]

'Where there's muck there's brass' is probably one of the most famously quintessential Yorkshire phrases. There was a brilliant tv programme years ago called 'Brass', centred on a wealthy Yorkshire family.

'Shaping wooden' is one I have inherited from Ma. If you're faffing about being ineffective: "Come on, you're shapin wooden lass."

Another is: 'stand locking up'. As in "If I don't sort out that bill before it goes red, I stand lockin' up" or, "If I don't get an early night tonight, I stand lockin' up."


I think my favourite though, was the phrase that both mum and dad used to signal bedtime: Come on then, they'd say, 'up tha dances'. For years my infant brain heard that as 'up the dances' and thought that somehow 'the dances' meant the stairs to bed.

[footfootfoot]

"You can give her the bullets, if you can give her the gun."

[Bullitt]

From my dad: "Just be thankful we don't get all the government we pay for."

[casimendocina]

[Subject] has to pull their socks up (on shoddy performance).

[DanaC]

Do you guys use the phrase 'on tenterhooks' to denote anticipation?

[casimendocina]

Absolutely. Used it just last week.

[casimendocina]

I used the phrase "jolly hockey sticks" this morning in conversation with a Canadian who had never heard of it. Would it be a strange expression for someone in the UK who hasn't read boarding school stories?

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by casimendocina

I used the phrase "jolly hockey sticks" this morning in conversation with a Canadian who had never heard of it. Would it be a strange expression for someone in the UK who hasn't read boarding school stories?

How do you use this phrase in a sentence?

[DanaC]

No, that's a well-known phrase used to describe a particular kind of upper-class girl or woman. Usually slightly derogatory, it suggests someone with that particular kind of well-bred, jolly enthusiasm and zeal, but not that bright.

[casimendocina]

Originally Posted by DanaC

No, that's a well-known phrase used to describe a particular kind of upper-class girl or woman. Usually slightly derogatory, it suggests someone with that particular kind of well-bred, jolly enthusiasm and zeal, but not that bright.

Love this phrase-used to use it a lot about 15 years ago, but these days I don't incorporate it into my conversation nearly enough. Time to change that.

[Trilby]

Dana - you mean tenderhooks, right? Is it tenterhooks??

[DanaC]

Tenterhooks. :p

[DanaC]

From wiki:

Tenterhooks were used as far back as the fourteenth century in the process of making woollen cloth. After the cloth was woven it still contained oil from the fleece and some dirt. A fuller (also called a tucker or walker) cleaned the woollen cloth in a fulling mill, and then had to dry it carefully or the wool would shrink. To prevent this shrinkage, the fuller would place the wet cloth on a large wooden frame, a "tenter", and leave it to dry outside. The lengths of wet cloth were stretched on the tenter (from the Latin "tendere", to stretch) using hooks (nails driven through the wood) all around the perimeter of the frame to which the cloth's edges (selvedges) were fixed so that as it dried the cloth would retain its shape and size.[1] At one time it would have been common in manufacturing areas to see tenter-fields full of these frames.

By the mid-eighteenth century the phrase "on tenterhooks" came into use to mean being in a state of uneasiness, anxiety, or suspense, stretched like the cloth on the tenter. [2]

There's a collection of streets and roads near me which is called 'Tenter Fields'. Probably built where the old wool drying fields once were.

[Trilby]

well, I'll be dipped in shit. I learned something new today!

thanks, prof. DanaC.

I always wondered about tenderhooks - I mean, tender? Right? makes no sense...