• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Brummie sayings & language

Status
Not open for further replies.
I found out when I moved to Brum from Bath that what I knew as Lardy Cakes were Dripping Cakes, fizz was pop, rolls were baps and daps were pumps. Mums were moms and Grans or Grandmas were Nans. Buses were Buzzes that ran along Horseroads.
 
Motor Bike Mike - I remember those expressions - sound funny now.

Heard the one 'You look like the cat that swallowed a canary'?
 
motor bike mike Out side Brum no one would understand that one 0 they would think we were balmy LOL
 
I recall being told by an elderly neighbour in the early 60s to "to keep out the 'orseroad or you'll have to gooh up the orspical!"
I also seem to recall the use of the word "us" for "I" as in "give us it here".
I also remember pikelets. But weren't they square rather than the usual round crumpet?
Also recall Lardy cakes and cobs(round crusty bread rolls).
 
The crossing on the stairs is a no no in our house too, even my kids wont do it.
My nan used to call me 'fanny fer nakapan', or 'fanny farooke', god only knows where that came from!!!
Pikelets are crumpets in our house.

Wendy.xxx
 
My nan used to say 'fanny fernakapan' too Flounder, & I think I've heard others say it too. When I left Brum for Uni I had a heck of a time up North with asking for 'baps' ("you mean buns pet"?).....no, buns have fruit in em!! Or 'cobs'. Its definitely 'pikelets' of course.
I tend to still use expressions like 'face on as long as Livery St' & 'round the Wrekin' even now up here (North East).....people used to think I was crackers........now they just know I am!!

Trouble I've found is that as I've picked up other expressions from around about on my travels, & I get funny looks when I go back to Brum & use a 'local expression' from up here without realising others wont have heard it!!!
 
I remember my Mom using the phrase 'much of a muchness.'

Also, we'd talk of a 'piece of jam', meaning a jam sandwich.
 
Hi Astonian
My Mom used to say if you meet on the stairs you wont meet in Heaven so even now we don't cross on the stairs in our house
 
Maggie, we were always told it was bad luck to cross on the stairs, so even now we don't!

Also said, "up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire"
 
Hi Judy with all the bad luck omens.. gooing up the orspital..getting the fever.the bogie man coming it's a miracle we are all still here lol
 
"The dog (or cat) has gone into the iron and steel business...........it's made a bolt for the door!!!!"
 
Don't know Mabel as I don't know what he was reffering to?. Maybe it's something to do with jiggies the funny things that jump up and down doing silly things?.
 
I could venture a suggestion but then I would be in trouble - said too much already :)
 
Mabel by all accounts I have been jiggered on many occasions. Exhausted surprised bewildered and am not sure about this one will have to wait till I'm dead. Damned. Jean. I must be on my best behaviour tonight.
 
Another Brummie saying, when talking about a younger brother "Our Kid"
When I was very young birds were cuk cuks,and hands were donnies.

Midge
 
As an ex Brummy living in Kent , all the stories and sayings made laugh, where we lived, my granny used to say can smell the sauce doll today its going to rain/ Pikelets rolls all Brummy sayings. hope we never lose them Bobby b
 
" Ave yow pinched mi allan kay" ( expletives deleted). I had that phrase said to me every day for twenty years by a Brummie workmate who worked an adjacent lathe. As soon as he had said it he would say, in a quieter tone" O! ere it is".
 
I was born in the Staffordshire moorlands in 1942 ,my Dad was a coal miner and hated every minute of it.He decided to join the local police force but was an inch too short so they advised him to try Birmingham who recruited shorter officers.
Thank goodness they accepted him and we came to live here when I was 7/8 years of age.
I can't imagine being anything but a Brummie and with my accent nobody could mistake where i come from.
 
Another word has just come back to me from my childhood - did you have a drawtin to help get the kitchen fire going?

Graham
 
If my Mom had done any decorating or sewing and it was perhaps a little bit out she would say "BLIND HARRY WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT" for years i wondered who Harry was, and if i asked my brother for anything(like money or sweets he would say " WHEN THE QUEEN MARY COMES UP THE RIVER COLE"
 
The value of life , lie not in the lengh of days
but in the use w make them ,

that it will never come again it what makes life so sweet .
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top