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

when we were playing mum up she would say in a very firm voice... stand still and come here

My Mum used to say " You've made your bed, now you must lie in it".

My husbands Nan always told me to "Cut your cloth according to it's width"

My 93 year old dad,when I asked how he was(he is in hospital) said "It's alright, better than flowers on your chest!" Took me a minute to realise what he meant!

"angels up above you, smiling at you dearie, from the skies"etc. My Nan used to sing that to me too.

If petticoats were showing my Mum used to say'it's raining in Paris' and if trouser zips were down it was 'you're flying low'.

Just thought of another. Anyone else given the signal 'FHB', when entertaining visitors? It meant 'family hold back ' when food was a bit short.My mother would brush off compliments about her cakes by saying 'Oh it's just a few mouldy buns'

When my mother made me go out wearing something old fashioned and homemade , which I hated, she would sometimes reassure me by saying everybody knows you and other times nobody knows you. I could never win! Oh how I wished for shop-bought clothes like my peers.
I made all my children's clothes, but they enjoyed being different but still trendy.

Baggy - you saying bike reminds me of my Dad's term for visiting the loo.
"I'm just going to turn my bike round".

Another saying from my Mum, which I still use, is "Can't see A from a ball's foot", when you can't see something - too dark for example. How on earth anyone arrived at that saying I don't know.

Another one from my MIL when talking about something being not one thing or another was "Neither watercress nor cabbage".

One from my Dad about people who were incompetent was "Couldn't catch a pig in an alley".

And to those posters upthread who talked about petticoats showing and Charlie's dead - "Charlie's dead" was widely used at my school - not by my Mum though!

My dad was a great storyteller and a teaser to boot. He have us all spellbound with some tall tale and at the end when we asked: Did that really happen? Is it true?, he'd say: Of course it is! It's as true as I'm riding this bike.

He'd usually be sitting at the dining table when he said that.

That's so good to hear it's still being used Annobel.

Oh*Sewsilver*, I said just that to my son last night on the phone! It was one of my Dad's favourite sayings.

I have loved these posts. My gran used to say "I'm not so green as I'm cabbage looking" . She used to take her apron off and check her hair in the mirror before she answered the phone by which time the phone had stopped ringing. My sisters and I used to sit on the stairs watching all this and cry with laughter, we never thought to answer the phone.

What alot of feelings I have after reading these posts.
Laughed aloud at oldgrey's grandmother's galloping horse.
MIL used to say,if asked what she was doing "making a shim sham to put a meddlers nose in"
Thanks all for the much needed "uplift"

Oh how reading these posts brought back so many memories. I can clearly remember my grandma saying about someone "doing a job and making a job". I have been thinking of that phrase so much over the past month. We have just moved house and DH decided one morning while I was at work to unpack one of the boxes full of kitchen bits and bobs. He took each item out and put straight into a cupboard. Bless him - I hadn't the heart to say that I had allocated specific cupboards for specific items so when he was out I had to take everything our and reallocate all the items into the correct cupboards! He definitely DID a job as we had an empty box - but he also MADE a job because I had to empty the cupboard before I could do the job properly! Hey ho! At least he tried!

ha ha ha oldgreymare and baggy

our version is

It was a dark and stormy night
And there were robbers and thieves about
And the captain said to the others
Tell us a tale
And this is how it began (etc etc)

When my sister and I got a bit silly or carried away my dad used to say "a joke's a joke but you've gone too far" ............... Grrrrrrr

Baggy - my Dad used to tell me this "story" and I passed it on to my children too!

Sure we must have met in a previous existence, Baggy!
Here is our version:

Twas a dark and stormy night,
And the rain came down in torrents.
Said the husbands to the wives,
Said the wives to the children,
Tell us a story...... so the story began:
Twas a dark and stormy night.....

If I were making a fuss about my appearance ( a missing button or similar) my Gran ( you know, the one born in 1872!!!) would say:
' Who's going to get off a galloping horse to look at that?'

'Twas a dark and stormy night
And the captain said to the mate:
"Tell us a story!"
So the mate said:

'Twas a dark and stormy night......

My MIL used to say to my daughters 'I'm watching you with two eyes'. She also used to say that she had a bone in her leg!

I had an aunt who would say the same thing or a variation on a theme ... wherever you may be
let the wind blow free
whether church or chapel
let it rattle
As children we thought this was very risque and ever so naughty.

On breaking wind: 'Better an empty house than a bad tenant'.

My mother used to say when I asked her where she was going...
``I´m going out of my mind for the want of sense``
Well as I child I didn`t know what she was talking about.
My friends grandma always said when we showed her the rings we got out of the machines
``oh that is lovely, shines like a cat`s mickey in the dark`` LOL
I always wanted to know what the cat`s mickey was.

I used to pester my father to take me on holiday or out for the day and ask where could we go, he would say " Penshaw willick sands " Penshaw was inland from us and had a hill with a notable folly on the summit, no seafood and certainly no sand. My father was a skilled engineer and built model steam trains in his garden shed, I loved nothing better than standing at the open door and watch him work at his lathe with the inevitable question " what are you making dad " ? the answer was always " a gugar for a wigwam " for years I would ask adults " what's a gugar " ? I earned myself the nickname of " pesty " and I kept it until my father died. I was never upset by the use of the nickname for I truly believed I was my father's favourite daughter

My Dad had a lot of peculiar phrases. After the question "where are you going" he would say "there and back again to see how far it is". How long? questions would be answered "How long does it take a blue arsed fly to swim across a barrel of treacle?"

And if I wanted a story, but he was too tired to make one up, he'd say: "Ill tell thee a tale, about a snail, that jumped in't fire and burned its tail: Shall I begin it? That's all there is in it."

There were lots more, but I can't bring them to mind.