Things our parents used to say


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...And no central heating or double glazing...

We didn't either - scraping the frost off the INSIDE of the bedroom window was not uncommon - mum put towels on the windowsill to soak up the water as it melted!

I remember running downstairs to get dressed in the kitchen - next to the only source of heat in the house - a parrafin heater!

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The old sash windows with the ice on the inside , I tried to convince SWMBO that this actually happened in our house and she was ' having none of it ', so I'm glad of a bit of back up , cheers Eric

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Hey beefy, I've been called worse things than that! But I don't think it was short for potty, potty meant daft in my days [like gay meant happy!] Definitely never called the po a potty.

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Called a potty 'cause they were made of pot , sort of an affectionate term to 'keep it clean' as in

"Fetch the potty " rather that

"Fetch the p1$$ pot"

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Now that the tone of this thread has already been lowered a bit, perhaps I can now add that we kids were sometimes told to soak our feet in the guzzunder, po, poe, pot or whatever . Not filled with water either!! thumbsdown

Supposedly a good old country remedy for the chilblains on our feet caused by the lack of heating in our cottage (was probably frostbite if truth were known).

Yes, there were days when frost had to be chipped off the inside of the bedroom windows, and there was also no water available from the tap (single) for the same reason.

But we did have some bedtime comfort in the form of the cast iron oven shelves, hot from the kitchen range, wrapped in a towel and placed at the bottom of the bed. Or a housebrick that had been heated the same way.

(Should this be in a new thread - drifted off the topic a bit ??)

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Your method for soaking of the feet is an exellent cure for Trench Foot too . The ammonia in the urine kills the bacteria that causes the disease !!! (So I was told)

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Ayup all,

With reference to scriv's post No 209, balls off a brass monkey, here's a bit of info as to the origins of that saying, old navy thing, when they used to have iron cannon balls they found the best way to stack these things was in a square based pyramid shape, this allowed the balls to be stacked close to the cannon, however to stop the balls from rolling away they needed to be stored on a tray with 16 indents in it to stand the first row of balls, this couldn't be made from iron as the iron balls would soon rust to the tray making them impossible to move, the answer was to make the tray out of brass (a brass monkey) now brass expands and contracts more and quicker than iron so in cold weather the brass monkey contracted quicker than the iron balls causing the balls to fall off the monkey, hence cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,

I know I've gone on a bit here but the story is true and could come in handy in a pub quiz or sommat

Rog

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Sorry Rog:

http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.asp

Lots of other references too also suggesting the "brass monkey" is fictitious.

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Ayup Limey,

Very interesting read on that site, blew my theory out of the water (excuse the pun) it must have come from somewhere though as many of our other sayings, whats your thought's

Rog

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Who knows - but I do like, and still use, the saying! In fact, it was a bit brass monkeys when I came to work this morning!

Yeah, Snopes is a good website for myth dispelling! You can find all sorts of junk on there, and everytime I hear what I think may be an "old wives tale" Snopes invariably has the "scoop" on it!

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As mentioned elsewhere i regularly duck in and out of that Snopes site (In fact I have given them an update on one of their topics, not like me is it ???)

But I had always thought (After being told yonks ago ) that Rog was correct regarding the Brass Monkey !!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Gerron the corsey, orl I'll batcha tab!

Bit dark ower Bill's muvvers. I never fathomed where that one came from, but it appears folks in the West Country and as far up as Manchester used that same one.

You know, Ayup, being a bit of a languages freak, I was sitting down thinking of the word CORSEY the other week, and it suddenly occurred to me that it's almost certainly going all the way back to 1066 and Norman French! The French still use chausee (show-say) for the pavement, but back then, they'd have pronounced the CH the same as a rough Scottish OCHH. this would make it sound almost identical to 'Corsey'. Which makes us the long distance bearers of a very old word.

TH

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I'd always assumed it to be a corruption of "causeway", which taking on board Hathers' comments above would seem to be on the right lines.

Talking of corruptions, but still on topic thankfully :tongue: ; my dad, when asked (as we all have been) about the origins of "me duck", used to say that it derived from "my duke", can anyone else verify this?

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I'd always assumed it to be a corruption of "causeway", which taking on board Hathers' comments above would seem to be on the right lines.

Talking of corruptions, but still on topic thankfully :tongue: ; my dad, when asked (as we all have been) about the origins of "me duck", used to say that it derived from "my duke", can anyone else verify this?

Cause, course - all the same root. Dondon is deffo Brummie from OND for hand. 'Let's have a chike' from the Dutch Kijk (kike). Remember bobos - maybe because they bob their noggins when they run? One thing that HAS died out in Nottm is the word MOANT. As in 'You moant touch that cake till it's teatime! (musn't - there was never a MO for must, though?)

TH

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My mum used to say, when her nose itched, that she was going to be kissed by a fool. She had a saying for everything and a superstition for everything too.

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I may have mentioned this but if some thing was easy , it was puddy winks. Although it was only the kids who seemed to say it!!

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When someone could talk the hind leg off a donkey, my mam would say 2 things. 'She must have been vaccinated with a gramophone needle' or 'She's like a gramophone with the needle stuck'

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