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Odd Sayings

"Stop yer troshin" .... a north Norfolk saying for "stop going on" ..... aka: stop being a winey twat.
"Keep on troshin " .... : keep going mate but you're still a bit of a twat.
 
When we were children and came in dirty Mum used to say we were mucky toads.
 
My late grandfather was born in 1919 in Leicester. He remembered his elderly neighbours telling him off for some misdemeanour in the 1920s, calling him a "little Roosian". He reckoned they were harking back to the Crimean War, and my mind was boggled that this was a living connection over 150 years or so. It's only now I come to write it down I realise that they were far more likely to have been referring to the 1917 revolutions and subsequent chaos...
 
escargot1 said:
Mrs Beeton recommends the amniotic-type caul. :eek:

Folk belief has it that a baby born with the caul intact on their head is safe from drowning.
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. I was staying with my Nan a couple of years ago who is now 88 and during a conversation about me, my sisters and other family members my Nan said to me "you'll never drown". I knew I was born with a caul but had never heard that old wives tale before.
My Grandad was in the navy during WW2 so maybe she got the idea from him. The funniest thing about it is that I can't even swim .
 
I'm from the Midwestern US and my Grandpa had a saying where if you were compmaining to him he'd respond 'shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which one fills up first'. My uncle also has one (rather racist) saying 'I was drunker'n ten thousand Indians' (meaning Native Americans).
My uncle also says of a lady's large backside 'she walks like two coons fightin in a gunny sack' My dad has been known to say 'I was shaking like a dog shitting razor blades' My husband also has several unique sayings that come from time spent inside prison like when you are angry you are 'salty' or a cigarette is a 'square' or if you want the last bit of someone's cigarette that is 'shorts' like 'can I get shorts on that square?'
 
The last bit of a shared cigarette when I was at school was called either 'lastys', 'the dog end' or 'the final insult' .. welcome KHammers ..
 
Thank you. I'm a long time listener, first-time caller.
I'm sure my husband has more 'prisonisms' since it really is a whole different society inside but he may have forgotten a lot since he's been out nearly 6 years.
 
KHammers said:
Thank you. I'm a long time listener, first-time caller.
I'm sure my husband has more 'prisonisms' since it really is a whole different society inside but he may have forgotten a lot since he's been out nearly 6 years.
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Hopefully he's not still too institutionalised, yes.
 
Well he was never all that institutionalized, really. All prisoners get it to some degree but he had TV, letters to family and visits and also during his last 5 years he started a college program where college students came in and it gave him a view of outside as a 'reality' he would soon be in.
Also, he was only inside for 12 years but the understanding is that for every 5 years you are in, it takes 18 months to adjust to 'life on the outs'.
 
KHammers said:
I'm from the Midwestern US and my Grandpa had a saying where if you were compmaining to him he'd respond 'shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which one fills up first'. My uncle also has one (rather racist) saying 'I was drunker'n ten thousand Indians' (meaning Native Americans).
My uncle also says of a lady's large backside 'she walks like two coons fightin in a gunny sack' My dad has been known to say 'I was shaking like a dog shitting razor blades' My husband also has several unique sayings that come from time spent inside prison like when you are angry you are 'salty' or a cigarette is a 'square' or if you want the last bit of someone's cigarette that is 'shorts' like 'can I get shorts on that square?'
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'she walks like two coons fightin in a gunny sack' sounds like an expression I remember from the '70's:- "like two boiled eggs in a handkerchief".
 
FelixAntonius said:
'she walks like two coons fightin in a gunny sack' sounds like an expression I remember from the '70's:- "like two boiled eggs in a handkerchief".
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.. or "like two puppies fighting under a blanket" to describe jiggly breasts ..
 
Here's one acquaintances would use when I was a little younger: pie-eyed. Or the rude version: chink-eyed. After smoking something illicit your eyes can not just go bloodshot or dilate but they can also get so heavy-lidded they look rather squinty. Still weird/rascist phrasings for it.
 
'Fanny eyed' or 'Fanny eyed to fuck' means stoned in the Staffordshire and surrounding areas.. the use of the word in this case being the English slang for vagina .. it describes someone with slitty eyes because they're stoned.
 
KHammers said:
Here's one acquaintances would use when I was a little younger: pie-eyed. Or the rude version: chink-eyed. After smoking something illicit your eyes can not just go bloodshot or dilate but they can also get so heavy-lidded they look rather squinty. Still weird/rascist phrasings for it.
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I'm accustomed (US; 1950's onward ... ) to 'pie-eyed' connoting a wide-open stare rather than a squinty stupor. The specific allusion to semi-closed, leaden-lidded, or squinty eyes is a new one on me. For example:

“Pie-eyed,” usually meaning “extremely drunk” or “extremely tired,” dates to 1900 and comes from the fixed, wide-eyed stare of the afflicted, with eyes as wide and blank as the top of a pie (“They put him down at a Table and sat around him and inhaled the Scotch until they were all Pie-Eyed,” George Ade, 1904).

http://www.word-detective.com/2008/03/pie-eyed/
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Well you are probably correct on that. No one ever said a bunch of ne'er-do-well IA teens smoking pot were smart!
 
FelixAntonius said:
'she walks like two coons fightin in a gunny sack' sounds like an expression I remember from the '70's:- "like two boiled eggs in a handkerchief".
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Over the decades I've heard many variations on the 'animals writhing within a bag / sack' analogy for bodily undulations (almost always female bodies; almost always while moving / walking / dancing).

For what it's worth, I've heard such analogies used to apparently (in context ... ) express both positive and negative connotations about the movements so described.

The 'bag / sack' bit is pretty much universal, but I vaguely recall someone (decades ago ... ) using some variant that referred to the animals / objects being behind a curtain rather than enclosed in a bag.

Cats are the animals I've heard cited most often, but I've also encountered references to weasels, raccoons, and diverse other smaller mammals.

I'm pretty certain I heard this sort of thing said about a woman's lower rear motions as far back as the early to mid 1960's. I don't recall hearing it used with regard to the upper front region until circa 1970, when the women's lib movement came into its own and obvious (and even ostentatious ... ) bra-lessness had its transient heyday.
 
Its enough to make a dog vomit.

Cork saying about disgusting behaviour.

Is it in use elsewhere.
 
KHammers said:
I'm from the Midwestern US and my Grandpa had a saying where if you were compmaining to him he'd respond 'shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which one fills up first'. ...
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That one I've heard, but it wasn't common where I grew up (hills of east Tennessee). It was usually said to stifle someone who was rattling on with wishful or unrealistic statements - particularly someone in apparent denial about something bad going on.

KHammers said:
My uncle also has one (rather racist) saying 'I was drunker'n ten thousand Indians' (meaning Native Americans). ...
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I didn't hear many 'Indian' themed sayings until I spent time in the northern Midwest area (Michigan westward to Minnesota and the Dakotas). The most common saying I heard back home in the South was 'drunk as a skunk' (or close variations, all referring to skunks).

KHammers said:
My dad has been known to say 'I was shaking like a dog shitting razor blades' ...
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That one I've heard ... I also recall hearing reference to 'broken glass' as often as 'razor blades'.

KHammers said:
My husband also has several unique sayings that come from time spent inside prison like when you are angry you are 'salty' or a cigarette is a 'square' or if you want the last bit of someone's cigarette that is 'shorts' like 'can I get shorts on that square?'
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That usage of 'salty' is old and widespread enough to be in the dictionary. Its use in American slang to mean 'angry' goes at least as far back as the late 1930's (see http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=salty ).

The 'shorts' bit rings a very distant bell. I seem to recall there was a very similar term used back in the 1960's / 1970's to denote the status of, and privileges on, a joint that had burned down too far to be comfortably passed around. However, I don't remember whether 'short' / 'shorts' was the term used.
 
ramonmercado said:
Its enough to make a dog vomit.

Cork saying about disgusting behaviour.

Is it in use elsewhere.
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I believe I've heard that one on rare occasions. Seeing as how dogs vomit sometimes without obvious distress, it always seemed a bit tepid. I prefer the more over-the-top version from my younger days: "That's enough to gag a maggot."
 
You've got buckleys - meaning not a chance in the world.
 
In a similar vein, I think 'munter' is a wonderfully evocative word for a lady of few obvious attractions, and a fairly recent one at that.

What the equivalent for a similarly unattractive man would be I'll leave for some of the ladies to tell.
 
hunck said:
In a similar vein, I think 'munter' is a wonderfully evocative word for a lady of few obvious attractions, and a fairly recent one at that.

What the equivalent for a similarly unattractive man would be I'll leave for some of the ladies to tell.
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Punter?
 
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