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Anyone know this one?

S

Sid Walker

knowlegable brummie
Its been years since I've heard this one,but I suddenly said it the other day,out of the blue.
"You're all dressed up like a pox doctors clerk" I got strange looks from the person I said it to.
Has anyone else heared of this old saying.? Sid.
 
Yes, I heard 'like a Pox Doctor's Clerk' when I was working in London in the early 1960s, always referring to the No. 2 boss, who after that was always known unofficially as 'THE CLERK'.
Very nattily suited, he was.
Peter
 
This is what the Internet says about the phrase.

"A Dictionary of Catch Phrases American and British," discusses this one as part of a set including "all dressed up like a Christmas-tree," ". . . like a dog's dinner," ". . . like a ham bone," and ". . . like Mrs. Astor's horse." He says:

". . . like a pox-doctor's clerk," i.e., flashily: current since, very approx., c. 1870 . . . G. A. Wilkes, "Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms," 1978, defines it as 'dressed nattily, but in bad taste', claims it as Aus., . . . but I'm reasonably sure that it went to Australia from England. But 'a pox-doctor's clerk', and its variant 'a horse-doctor's clerk' (without 'like') had, in UK, a different usage: 'These were, in my younger days [1920s-40s] a way of explaining one's occupation if some impertinent person asked what you did for a living' (Anon., letter, 1978)
 
That is an interesting thought Rowan, back to the Internet it seems to know everything. O0
 
HI
ON THE TWO PINS. LEGS ARE KNOWN AS PINS SO IS THAT A CONNECTION SUCH AS IF I HAD TWO LEGS I'D ???????
JUST A THOUGHT
MOST LIKELY NOTHING LIKE
JOHN
 
I thought it referred to pin money - ladies making money by making pins - two pins were not worth very much - therefore it wouldnt take much to make me do whatever it was.
Bestie

rowan said:
"For two pins I'd.................."

Why two pins? ???
Click to expand...
 
I'm with Aston on that one
i.e........
"All dressed up like a dog's dinner"
that's the one I know
 
A family saying along the same lines as dogs dinner, was all dressed up like a ham bone, only they none of them pronounced the H so it was 'am bone
 
If my Mom was talking about one of the women in our street and didn't want me to know who it was, she would refer to her as Fanny Flanackerpan. :2funny:
 
It meant someone from Southern Ireland not PC today as it was a derogatory term
 
if my mom was talking about someone who was lucky she would say 'if he fell off lewis's roof he'd land in a new suit'
 
Hey I just used "dressed to the nines" in a story I wrote for my writing class. :)
 
or like, the dummie thats fell out of the,,
john colliers window ,. john collier, john collier
the window to watch. the advert that said it all.
 
"You get on my wick" was a favourite saying of my mother. :smitten:
 
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