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Odd Sayings

I found out yesterday what a poppety ping is. Google it to find out. It isn't rude and made me chuckle.
I haven't got time for all this! :twisted:

If you want tell us something, just tell us, or at least give a relevant link... :mad:
 
I've never heard of it and am prepared to remain entirely ignorant on the subject unless you force me to find out by printing it here.
 
As mad as a cut snake.

To shoot through like a Bondi tram.

More rattles and bangs than a millionaires baby.

All over the place like a mad womans breakfast.

Couldn't kill it with a stick.

Windy enough to blow a dog of its chain.

To come gutser.

Not within a bulls roar.

Off like a bucket of prawns (Gosford meatworks) (like a brides nightie).

As messy as a pakapu ticket.
 
In 2001 was a terrible steelworks disaster in Port Talbot, south Wales, where three men were killed. Reports mentioned that it was break time and some of the workers were in a mess room preparing 'ding dinners', or microwave meals.

Hadn't heard that particular neologism, and wish I'd never come across it in such dreadful circumstances, but it was funny and we still use it. Makes me think of the workers who were killed and their unfortunate families.
 
Not read the whole thread so apologies if covered before but when "Clockwork Orange" film came out the explanation of the title was a play on words, partly emanating from an early 20th century expression "as mad as a clockwork orange". I had never heard that expression before - was it in fact truly used?. The other part of the play on words was that Orang is a translation of "man" in some language (orang u tan etc) hence "clockwork man".
 
"As queer as a clockwork orange," is, I'm afraid, the more usual version. I only heard it in connection with the film and book but there were other similar phrases knocking around: "as queer as a nine-bob note," was the one I heard from time to time. :rolleyes:
Or...'as bent as a dog's hind leg'.
 
All over the place like a mad womans breakfast.

"All over the place like the mad woman's shit" - as apparently voiced by my dear-departed grandmother on occasion. Strangely, when I've heard people use this phrase (old folk, really), it seems to be "THE mad woman's" not "A mad woman's shit", as if there's a specific mad woman they are talking about.
I wonder if it's anything to do with the Milk Snatcher?

"Up and down like a jockey's bollocks"
 
"Up and down like a bride's nightie" - also a saucy song by John Shuttleworth.
 
"All over the place like the mad woman's shit" - as apparently voiced by my dear-departed grandmother on occasion. Strangely, when I've heard people use this phrase (old folk, really), it seems to be "THE mad woman's" not "A mad woman's shit", as if there's a specific mad woman they are talking about.
I wonder if it's anything to do with the Milk Snatcher?

"Up and down like a jockey's bollocks"

I was being polite arsesmacker...
 
"As queer as a clockwork orange," is, I'm afraid, the more usual version. I only heard it in connection with the film and book but there were other similar phrases knocking around: "as queer as a nine-bob note," was the one I heard from time to time. :rolleyes:
Ah so it was a "proper expression". If it was an early 20th century expression your corrected version wouldn't have the same connotations of course.
 
Poor nuns. What have they done to merit this prurient fascination with their nether regions?
 
'Gossiping like a fish monger's wife' ... did/do fish monger's wife's gossip a lot ? ... what's that one all about ?.
 
'Gossiping like a fish monger's wife' ... did/do fish monger's wife's gossip a lot ? ... what's that one all about ?.
I've not heard that - Myth's Wiki piece explains Fishwife as a woman who sells fish (and not necessarily married to anyone!)
I've seen somewhere a mention of a fishwife who sold fish from a basket in 19th C. Penryn, but I can't track down a link right now.

Herring girls followed the fishing fleets down the North Sea and worked on shore packing the fish into barrels. There were lots of them, so I imagine a lot of gossiping helped to enliven their working day. Here's a tale about some Scottish lasses in that trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Herring_Lassies_strike_in_East_Anglia_1938
 
Round here, calling woman a 'fishwife' means she is argumentative and possibly foul-mouthed. We don't have homegrown fishwives so we have to rely on reports from afar about their demeanour.

I've always thought it was about the usual thoughtless judgment of women, where ones who stand up for themselves are seen as strident or stroppy where a man in the same situation is acting normally. Women with their own incomes were traditionally seen as tricky too. Economic independence is dangerous. They might stop doing as they're told.
 
Another name for a midwife was a gossip at one time - time has denigrated this word it seems.
 
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