Things our parents used to say


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If anywhere, especially the house, was untidy, my Mum would say. it: 'Looked like Jackie Pownall's' (I believe Pownalls scrap yard was down by the old Vic baths?) Another variation was .'Looks like

My old mum, now passed, grew up in old St Anne's and knew hard times from being little until she met and married dad, one of her regular sayings was "If you can't afford it wi real money, you can

Tomlinson, In answer to your question #1387, I used to have some really good Tide Marks on my neck and running up my arms. The back of our house on Hardy's Drive, Gedling was a shared yard, I can'

Sorry if this has been mentioned previously.

I expect I was up to no good at the time, when these two words were aimed at me;

I think it went something like................"I don't want any more of this Tom Foolery or Malarkey!"

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The phrase Tomfoolery is from the 1650s. A buffoon was first called a 'Tom fool' because Tom was a nickname for a 'common man.' Fool once meant mad/insane, but by the 17th century, it was a reference to a jester/ a clown. The name Tom became influenced by 'Tom the cat' in the 1809 popular children's book 'The Life and Adventures of a Cat'. Tom the cat, quite a silly and a promiscuous night crawler, led to tomfoolery, a word for crazy behavior.

"don't give me that malarkey"meaningless talk; nonsense.

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As for "malarkey" , no one is sure where that word came from , though first written in the USA in the 1920s.

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If someone was not shy mam would say, he's not backwards at coming forwards. Also if someone was a bit 'slow' they were called 'backwards'. Funny saying really.

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One of mam's sayings (same mam as katyjay) was if a knife wasn't sharp she'd say ' I dare ride bare-arsed to London on that'. I continue this family saying.

The saying describing someone as 'Like a man made of smoke' should be 'Like a man made of smoke and stuffed with straw'

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Chulla, I'm always coming out with mam's sayings, sometimes it's one I haven't heard in years. You never forget them.

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"If you can't be in by 10.30, then don't bother coming home". That did it, I stayed out whenever I pleased.

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Basfordred, our 'sneck' went down as mam and dad went to bed, if you weren't in by then, tough luck. I remember throwing stones up to my brother's (Chulla) bedroom window once to be let in.

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In my late teens, I got home " tiddly" about 2.30 am one Sunday morning and realised I'd forgotten to take my front door key with me.

As this had become a regular thing and mum & dad were fed up with being disturbed, I decided to get the wheel barrow from the bottom of the garden, stand in it to give me some height to stand on the window ledge of the conservatory, then I could get on to its roof and crawl up it to reach my open bedroom window. Things didn't go quite to plan as the roof was damp from drizzle and I slid down it, fell into the wheel barrow and rolled down the rockery. By this time my parents were awake and fuming.

Dad muttered that I was bloody lucky that I had not fell through the Perspex roof of the conservatory and crashed down onto mothers collection of cactii plants. Another weekend of awkward silence.

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Another saying, popular when I was a lad - You're daft, me duck, you follow balloons.

And another, a sarcastic answer to the question 'Where are you going?' - Up Meg's arse to see how far it is.

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Reading the tree bumblebee thread, and folks getting bitten by mozzies etc, reminded me of one of mam's sayings. If someone got bitten by an insect, she'd say, they only go after bad meat.

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