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

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!

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.

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'

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'.

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

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!

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"

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

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!

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

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!

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

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!'

Sounds like the same ladies em .

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.

My dad said that as well.

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

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.'

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 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!"

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 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'.

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.

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..."

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.