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Brummie sayings & language
- Thread starter Claribel
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Elizabeth Redmond
Guest
A dream on Friday Saturday told will always come true be it ever so old, Is this the one you mean Jean
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Elizabeth Redmond
Guest
I remember that one
maggs
master brummie
Jean, I think it was blue and green should never be seen, but I love those colours together.
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Elizabeth Redmond
Guest
Red & Green, it comes from our nautical history as an Island race, if you see Red and Green you are seeing both Port & starboard navigation lights of a ship heading directly toward you...which is not good, it also applies to aircraft. the blue and green is i think something to do with fashion.
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Elizabeth Redmond
Guest
Maggie uk told me about a year ago,hehe.and Alf
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maxwell bullivant
Guest
Believe it or not i used to use Elbow grease when i was a metal polisher !!!! you could buy it at Cannings . I dont know what came first, the product or the saying. Max
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maxwell bullivant
Guest
My father used the word all of the time and Bug..y , he didnt know what it meant either. Strange how such horrible swear words came to mean so little, and no longer offend.
i suspect that with its constant usage on Tv and in the streets that the F word will ultimately go the same way. Some years back The Evening mail were asking for new swear words as the old ones were loosing there potency, the most popular one was Peodo as in paedophile. Max
Dolphie
master brummie
Oooh, my Mom says that, "wallop Mrs Cox, your mother's won a duck". I thought it was just one of my Mom's daft sayings, I didnt realise other people knew it as well.
Lloyd
master brummie
The original quotation was, "Up she goes and down she goes, Wallop Mrs Cox!" but other than a reference to it on radio's "Quote - Unquote" I can't find out its history.
More then the unfortunate Cox female slipping on ice or a banana skin, I would assume - something political, perhaps?
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maxwell bullivant
Guest
Cus Doc sounds like Duck maybe. Max
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maxwell bullivant
Guest
We always called the Drs " The Croakers " i know quite a few people that do . Max
Thylacine
master brummie
Wikipedia has a page on the subject (as usual).
I don't know if this one's been on before: "gone for a burton". I thought of it this morning for some reason, for the first time in many years. Is it a Brummie expression? [Note added: yes it has been on before, and I even commented on it! My memory's not what it used to be!?!? But does anyone know its origin?]
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Graham
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Very good Thylacine! I was just about to add that here in Belgium and Holland we also use the word 'kwak' when referring to a dubious doctor and I see from your Wikipedia link that the English use of the word has it's origins in the Dutch/Flemish language. We still use the word 'kwakzalver' in our everyday language.
The word "quack" derives from the archaic word "quacksalver," of Dutch origin (spelled kwakzalver in contemporary Dutch), meaning "boaster who applies a salve."[3]
Graham.
Lloyd
master brummie
Someone answering this question on Answers.com says the following:
"The phrase actually appeared in print, for the first time, on the 30 August 1941 in the New Statesman. It was first used when referring to the death in action of pilots in WWII.
From where did the expression spring? Who knows. Was it derived from a Spanish Burton (a kind of complex pulley arrangement for Royal Navy ship stowage - see https://compass.seacadets.org/pdf/nrtc/sn/14067_ch4.pdf and see p.34); used figuratively as fitted for a suit from the tailors Montagu Burton - eg. as one would say 'he's being fitted for a wooden overcoat' i.e. a coffin; beer as produced by a brewery located in Burton-on-Trent (this area is actually a well known brewing town in the Midlands); is it rhyming slang based on the name of that town? 'Went' - 'he's at Burton-on-Trent [went]'; based on the name of the town, going for a beer , it could be said 'he's gone for a Burton'. It's interesting to note that the brewing company Burton Brewery Co Ltd closed its doors in 1935. It was a minor league player in the beer stakes before it 'went for a burton' so was not missed on its closing down."
Another reader comment, this time on Jeremy Alderton's Cockney Rhyming Slang dictionary page says:
"The phrase "Gone for a Burton" derives from a pre-war advertising poster campaign for beer - Burton's best bitter - which showed a crowded workplace with someone obviously missing. The punch line was: "He's gone for a Burton", implying the person had skipped off down the pub for a quick pint. In World War Two, during the Battle of Britain, the phrase was revived by RAF officers as a piece of black humour. Noticing blank spaces at their mess tables in the evening the RAF types would joke of their lost comrades: "He's gone for a Burton"."
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maxwell bullivant
Guest
My maternal Grandfather ( who had an excellent way with words ) would install in one the importance of paying a debt on time with " Don't be too long gone for the wood" Max
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