Mum's evasive answers to my questions.

Love all those expressions- will have to print this thread

our dentist, who happened to be a very good friend, from NI, always said 'it's for me to know and for you to wonder'.

If I answered 'eh?' instead of pardon she would say 'hay? horses eat it, cows chew it'.
Also 'ta' is what they spread on the roads 'say thank you'
Brummies around where we lived used to say 'mind how you cross the horse road'.

Called DS "you dirty Arab" and he told me it was racist. It was an expression always used in my East End London family. An alternative was" as black as Newgate's Knocker".

Pittcity I think lots of the East End language would be considered racist if used these days. We were a bit ignorant then.

Yes indeed Ginny. 'Oxters' is Ulster Scots for armpits. As in 'He was up to the oxters in clabber', meaning covered in mud! I have just had a five minute fight with autocorrect to allow me to print that!!!

My mother used to answer 'what's for tea?' with '*tantadullum*'. Absolutely no idea where that came from but it did keep me intrigued. I know now with the wisdom of old age that she hadn't thought what to cook yet.

A really dark night was as black as the earl of hell's waistcoat, according to my gran.

Bad weather coming was "It`s a bit black over Bill`s mother`s".

I used to ask my father where we were going on holiday, we never went on holiday, and he would answer "Penshaw willick sands" Penshaw has a hill that has a folly on the top, looks like the Acropolis, and is definitely inland.
When asked what he was making in his shed he would say "a gugar for a wigwam"
My mother used to say she was running away with the black man and this really confused me because a Mr Blackman lived next door. Dear oh dear but that was the 50s.

Just remembered when things were a bit out of hand and she thought we were taking no notice of her my mother would say, "Oh do as you like your mother's drunk"
She also used to say she'd run off with a black man.

Asked dad what he was getting mum for Christmas.
He replied A golden new nothing to wear on her arm.

Feel a bit miffed, as my Mother just used to answer questions honestly, so I have nothing to offer.

If my mother couldn't remember someone's name it was 'Mrs. Oojamaflipsimebob'

FIL's favourite saying was (and MIl hated it) 'Suckme bob'.......I dread to think what he meant

My grandma is another one who regularly said "well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!
I assumed that it was local, as she lived all her life in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. Seems not, from what other posters have said.

She also said "well, I'll go to our (h)ouse" in the same context.

The only one of the above answers that I regularly heard as a child, other than the "as old as my tongue ..." one.

Funny that MamaCaz as I come from a Holmfirth family and your Gran had the same sayings as my Mum. Must have been Yorkshire-isms?

My Gran was from Yorkshire too. She used to say "wait and see" when I asked what was for pudding.
Another one of hers was "I dare say..." when someone expressed an opinion she didn't agree with.

We used to have 'aughts'. I thought it meant there was nothing else. One of the men working on the farm used to say he was making 'sky 'ooks for teddy bears' if we asked what he was making.

We lived in Hull-Yorkshire as well, So perhaps "Well I'll go to" is of northern origin. Also remember-as a dire warning about not having a Yorkshire accent
"What's the matter?"
Answer- "Pigs in t'watter" (Pigs in the water!)

What does handsome is as handsome does mean? The message in this saying has always eluded me.

It means it's no use looking good if you don't act right.

My mother used to describe stupid people as 'dim as a Toc H lamp'. As a child I used to think it was 'Tockaitch' and had no idea what it meant. Thanks to google I now know it is an Aladdin style lamp which is the symbol of the Toc H charity movement.

She also frequently said I looked like something the cat's dragged in. (I was a scruffy child!) I imagined some sort of bag you would drag a cat around in, but why you would do this I could not imagine! It was years before I realised my grammatical error ie something the cat 'has ' dragged in, not 'is' dragged in!

The other saying which confuses me to this day was 'She's no better than she should be' to describe a woman who was a bit 'loose'. What?

My mum wasn't very complimentary about me either. I have thick unruly curly hair and I've been told I look like:
The wild woman from Borneo.
An explosion in a mattress factory, or
you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards.
Didn't do my confidence much good :-(

Grandma2213 Thank you for reminding me about 'dim as a TocH lamp' -my Dad used it frequently and I'd forgotten all about it.

mrs mopp - my mum said all those things. I'd forgotten The wild woman from Borneo.

If I said when I was a little kid,

"Would I grow up would I make a good nurse, secretary, teacher etc.," mum would reply.

"You'd make them cry."

When I had my first waspie belt in the early 60s mum said I looked like a bag of worms tied up ugly.

Thanks mum

Think the one that always got me and which I never understood was the "Pride feels no pain" said usually when some adult was forcing a comb/brush through the tangles in my hair, or pulling it tightly into plaits, or (horrors) twisting it into rags so it would hang in ringlets when combed out. I don't care what they said-it hurt!