Is this a generation thing ?

What does it mean?

Had a friend as a teenager originating from Scotland then Manchester used to say "like a piffy on a rock cake" thought it meant something quite small...my mums version was "like a pimple on a ducks arse"

I am fro mSheffield and have never heard the expression "Once in a Sheffield flood", so don't know where it comes from unless it has its origins in the great Sheffield flood of 1864. I'd like to know. GS had a friend round playing after school today and his mum came to call for him as they had to go out. "Put your shoepods on, C" she said to him. My mother used to say that to me when I was young and I was quite taken aback as I hadn't heard it for years.

Well I m from East Anglia and we always said 'put the wood in the hole' also ' were you horn in a barn' and ' hold your horses' my grandad used to say about anything not brilliant ' well it's better than a slap across the belly with a wet fish' When the sky was very black it would be ' a bit dark over Wills wife's mother's' and who the heck was Gordon Bennett???

Like a pea on a drum my mother said.

My DSs and GC used to think I was very odd when I said that something of someone 'would make a cat laugh'. Now they sometimes use it themselves.

I've never heard that one anno!

We're from East London (ish) and my family used "put the wood in the hole" and "born in a barn". I'm sure these are more generational than regional.

Yes anno that used to be said a lot by grandparents.
Also, if describing somebody being angry with somebody they would be 'playing Pop.'

I am Scottish and have used it

I think it came into the family through my Leicester-born-and-bred maternal GM.

I'm a southerner but I lived in the north for four years and I've never heard this expression.

I thought "piffy on a rockbun" meant looking a bit silly or out of place.
e.g. "He was left standing there like piffy on a rockbun".

Grew up in Essex with 'put the wood in the hole', along with 'born in a barn' and also 'born in a field with the gate open'. Homes were draughty then . I was also told to 'hold your horses' when rushing at things.

Like Bluebelle, I grew up in East Anglia and am quite familiar with it. To answer the original question, though, I would have thought it was a regional thing - a Northern expression, as it was mainly used by the Yorkshire girls at school. I even hear it in a Yorkshire accent when I say it to myself.

There are so many lovely sayings what about ' popping your clogs' 'and pushing up the Daisy's' for death and does anyone else use piffle and squit for rubbish When grandad went to the pub he was ' going to see a man about a dog'

"Going to see a man about a dog" to me means going to the gents I didn't know what "piffy on a rock bun" meant, Iv'e never heard that. I have heard "pimple on a ducks arse" though.

Wood in hole and born in barn in Midlands but never heard piffy on a rock bun until now, great expression!

Snowing down south, used as teenagers if someone's slip (petticoat) was showing.

Elrel if someone's petticoat was showing, the expression up here was "Charlie's dead!" . 'Snowing down south' at least makes sense!

We always said it's raining in Paris if your petticoat was showing.

Regional. East Midlands. (Leicester)

"It's looking a bit black over Bill's mothers." =Dark clouds in view.
"Were you born in barn?"
"Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire"
"Skin a rabbit for Ninepence." (Undressing a small child.)
(You let the tea) "mash"

"Bonny" = Rather fat
"cots" tangled hair.
"mardy" =grumpy.
"rocks" =sweets
"Entry" the path to the back yard of terraced houses.
"Me Duck"
All of these I remember.

Regional accents and expressions are rapidly disappearing so its both a regional and generational thing.

Its very sad. In another fifty years the entire country will be speaking what has come to be known as 'inner city English', innit.

My maternal grandmother used 'put wood in hole'she was originally from Yorkshire farming stock.
My father used to ask if I was born in a field and also if I cast a shadow when he was reading "you make a better door than a window"
The younger generations don't seem to understand these old sayings but DS sometimes says things that remind me so much of my father, an over-filled cupboard that spilled it's contents was always an avalanche cupboard often prefixed with an expletive.