Did your parents have any phrases, sayings or wise words?

My mum used to say in response to constant whining for something 'I want never gets'

About someone who always promised they would do something but didn't, or said they had done something when they hadn't, she would say scornfully 'he says everything but his prayers'

She also said the galloping horse one referred to earlier, but her variation would be 'nobody's going to stop a galloping horse to look at that'

And my favourite, usually in response to me making excuses along the lines 'but I thought....' to which she would reply 'you know what thought did....followed a muck cart and thought it were a wedding' (Has to be read in a Yorkshire accent)

I never understood the last one as a child, in fact it only clicked into place a few years ago, but I only have to think of it to smile and remember!

super "tears before bedtime" was my mum's favourite.
From dad : "Put the wood in the hole = close the door
"up the wooden hills" = to go upstairs

It'll either rain or go dark before morning?

Jeni I haven't heard that one for years., my brother used to say it. It was often " a bit black over our Will's" but don't know where it came from. "There'll be tears before bed-time " was one of my Mother's more threatening ones, and we never dared test it - she was scary.

Ah we had "looks a bit black over Bill's mother's"
Who was Bill?

Its raining over Bills house !

Laugh before breakfast and you'll cry before supper. How depressing is that?

Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

My dear mum used to sing me a lullaby that used to start with "when mummy says its time for bed, up the stairs we climb, we always take a story book once upon a time, jack and jill went up the wooden hill, peter piper played a lullaby etc etc" does anyone else know that one? also one of her sayings was "when debts come through the letter box, love flies out of the window, such memories and such wisdom bless.

Whenever my sister and I were having fun and giggling madly, my mother would shake her head and murmur..."there'll be tears before bedtime..."

Did you ever hear, 'Think first and you'll have no cause to be sorry', which is perhaps another way of saying, 'Always engage brain before operating mouth', or, 'While you keep your hands in your pockets you'll never have anything else in them'.

Dad's voice of surprise was always, 'Well! I'll go to the foot of our stairs'. In the case of someone getting over excited he would say, 'If you don't know whether you are coming or going, I'm getting out of the way before there is a nasty accident when you meet yourself coming back'. It always calmed me down very quickly.

My mother had her own version of the Scandinavian saying about children, 'certain anxiety, uncertain joy' - her's was 'None to make you laugh, none to make you cry'.

We were at our Family Christmas lunch yesterday and remembering my dear Mum who died just over two years ago. It was great to hear my two sons and daughter telling their children about Nanajoy's little sayings - one of their favourites was when we were all sitting around a meal table and the kids needed reminding Mum used to say "SWOBLE" All my three knew exactly what she was meaning - SWOBLE is 'elbows' spelt backwards!

My grandmother used to say "old age never comes alone", now that my knees go off like shotguns when I get out of bed in the morning, I'm beginning to
understand what she meant.

My grandfather had some funny sayings, " You knows er, you knows er as well as I do! Little widder woman, walks about a lot on her feet!"

Bellesnan that is what my Nan used to say. It took me ages to work out what she meant when she called some-one a "tea leave".

Although I was born in London I moved to darkest Buckinghamshire when 3 weeks old, but both times a new baby arrived I stayed with my Nan and Grandad and loved it.

I seem to remember that one of the sayings was "all fur coat and no knickers" Love that one, sums up some people I know really well.

My mother used to say 'they were would be if they could be.'
If one of us children asked her how old she was she would always say, 'as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.'

MiL - "It's only the hairs on a gooseberry, that stop it from being a grape." ????

My dad said that as well.

My father was supremely cynical. When I was about 8 I asked him what 'Sez you' meant ( we watched a lot of American films). He replied 'It's what Joseph said to Mary'. My non-practising Catholic mother was outraged.

We had a teacher who always threatened 'Woe betide you if....' It took me a long time to realise what that meant.

Sounds like the same ladies em .

Don't know if it's Dundee's version of the Edinburgh saying on snobbishness but the one I heard most often was ' pianos and kippers'. Also Dad's warning to stay away from bad company - 'If you're no amangst the craws you'll no get shot!'

I don't think the fur coat and nae drawers ladies were no better than they ought to be - they were more like Hyacinth Bucket in caring more about what the neighbours thought of them than about their underwear.

These days it seems to be interpreted as looking respectable and being secretly randy, but I don't think that used to be so.

Don't see so many fur coats lately, but it used to be a fact that Morningside matrons in fur coats were likely to somehow get to the front of any queue - and be affronted if anyone spoke out against them.

My father remarked of one of my school friends that she was lamb dressed as mutton

My nan would say that they were mutton dressed up as lamb or no better than they ought to be - the last one really baffled me!

seventimesfive Like those Edinburgh ladies with fur coat and nae drawers.

My mother used to say about people who she felt were putting on an outward appearance above their income, that they lived on the smell of an oil rag!