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Local sayings from yesteryear!


peterinfrance

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Stair rods are straight so a reasonable parallel with rain that’s so heavy it’s coming straight down ….like a stair rod .

Do homes these days have stair rods?

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Two origins for the newts: (1) look at the wobbling gait of a newt, a drunk can't walk straight or (2) midshipmen (trainee officers, early teens) were known as "newts" and due to their age couldn't hold their liquor.  There doesn't seem to be any known origin of canine and feline precipitation.

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3 minutes ago, MartinR said:

Two origins for the newts: (1) look at the wobbling gait of a newt, a drunk can't walk straight or (2) midshipmen (trainee officers, early teens) were known as "newts" and due to their age couldn't hold their liquor.  There doesn't seem to be any known origin of canine and feline precipitation.

That's the explanation I like, in my own mind most sayings are based on observations and experiences.

 

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19 hours ago, MartinR said:

Two origins for the newts: (1) look at the wobbling gait of a newt, a drunk can't walk straight or (2) midshipmen (trainee officers, early teens) were known as "newts" and due to their age couldn't hold their liquor.  There doesn't seem to be any known origin of canine and feline precipitation.

Yet it's not confined to English. The French reverse the order of precipitation: "Il pleut des chiens et des chats".

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3 hours ago, Athy said:

Yet it's not confined to English. The French reverse the order of precipitation: "Il pleut des chiens et des chats".

Sorry but a foreign tongue is wasted on me.

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6 minutes ago, MartinR said:

Literally "It rains the dogs and the cats".

I did get the jist (or is it gist) of it but foreign languages are just something that I never had at school and never found them any use for me while producing cutlery.

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Tozzin….you will find that a multitude of English words are actually French….often with  a Latin root stemming from the days when the Normans conquered us and used their language for such things as the military (lieutenant) and a whole host of legal …(inquisition)and religious (parish)terminology. Add to that the words we have introduced…curry, bungalow, yacht….from places around the globe and you will see English is a rich mixture.

 

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27 minutes ago, Lysanderix said:

Tozzin….you will find that a multitude of English words are actually French….often with  a Latin root stemming from the days when the Normans conquered us and used their language for such things as the military (lieutenant) and a whole host of legal …(inquisition)and religious (parish)terminology. Add to that the words we have introduced…curry, bungalow, yacht….from places around the globe and you will see English is a rich mixture.

 

I’m sorry if I implied I was a bit of a numbskull but I am very aware of the diversity of the English language with words from the Anglo Saxons and all the other foreign words thrown into our melting pot right up to the present day. My post was just to say I don’t and have never spoken French either broken or fluent, I’ve never had the need for it, the English language with its ancient words and there meanings are my passion, along with place name who’s names go back to the invaders of Britain who eventually settled here.

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I n my school days I was taught both French and Spanish . After leaving school I became involved in export and found my attempts in using , especially French ,swiftly put in place with comments such as….”your accent is terrible and I want to improve my English….so would you mind if we spoke your language”….. so I can’t say I found schoolboy French especially useful!😊

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1 hour ago, Lysanderix said:

I n my school days I was taught both French and Spanish . After leaving school I became involved in export and found my attempts in using , especially French ,swiftly put in place with comments such as….”your accent is terrible and I want to improve my English….so would you mind if we spoke your language”….. so I can’t say I found schoolboy French especially useful!😊

I am perhaps biased, as it was schoolboy French which laid the first foundations of my professional career.

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Sorry if this saying has been mentioned but back in the sixties we used to stay with my granny on occasions.

She lived in Pitsmoor and after a day running around the old marshalling yards at the Victoria station ( It was run down by then ) we would get back and ask what was for tea.

She would always reply with " a run around the table and a kick at the cellar door"

 

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Here is one I remember............."Well I'll gu to ar ouse.

Whilst I  know this is from Sheffield, I am not sure if it is exclusively from there. However the way we pronounce it is a world away from

"proper English................"Well I will go to our house"

That does not work for me.............................comments?

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Similar to…” I’ll go to end or ar rooad”……”I’ll go to top or ar stairs”….I’ll go to ar Micks”…etc.etc.😋

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One saying that ran through my family, probably brought over from Ireland in the late 1890s, if any of us saw or knew someone who was a bit untrustworthy or a bit dodgy we would say “ he’s a right Sligo “ I never really understood it but looking back it may have been that people from Co Sligo were untrustworthy, I can’t say for sure it may have been just a Dublin thing, I just don’t know.

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I've just been to the butcher's shop next door. Because there was already a customer in there I had to wait outside to comply with their rule. When I got in, I remarked to the lady behind the counter "It's a lazy wind today".

She had no idea what I meant. I was amazed.

   I have used the term for many years: it's a wind that's too lazy to go round you, so it goes straight through you instead. Evidently the expression hasn't reached West Anglia. But is or was it used in Sheffield?

   

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I came across this in Whitley Bay.  When the Nor'easterlies set in there during winter the winds were coming straight from the arctic, and boy did you feel it along the sea front!  I've never felt winds like them "down south", or inland for that matter; they weren't that strong, just biting cold.

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2 hours ago, MartinR said:

I came across this in Whitley Bay.  When the Nor'easterlies set in there during winter the winds were coming straight from the arctic, and boy did you feel it along the sea front!  I've never felt winds like them "down south", or inland for that matter; they weren't that strong, just biting cold.

So, that expression was in use up there?

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Yes, quite common amongst the locals.  I wonder if the salt  in the air made the winds seem worse, we rarely got snow on the sea front, generally it started about half a mile inland or once the roads had a bend or two, just past us when I cycled in to work.  Mentioning the salt, Dad's car after a few years needed serious corrosion attention on one side only, our road ran directly from the coast and so Dad always parked broadside on in the drive.

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On 19/01/2022 at 20:17, tozzin said:

One saying that ran through my family, probably brought over from Ireland in the late 1890s, if any of us saw or knew someone who was a bit untrustworthy or a bit dodgy we would say “ he’s a right Sligo “ I never really understood it but looking back it may have been that people from Co Sligo were untrustworthy, I can’t say for sure it may have been just a Dublin thing, I just don’t know.

Maybe a play on Sly 

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9 hours ago, hackey lad said:

Maybe a play on Sly 

No I doubt that, I never heard anyone else say it only in my family, my mother told me she did get it fro:her Irish mother in law.

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