LESSER HEARD OR FAMILY SAYINGS...

[zombemybabynow]

"Itchy bum: surprise to come"

[Dredd Head]

Going for a Brad Pitt = Going for a shit

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

A friend of mine, along with his brothers and sisters, all use the phrase 'What's your boggle?'. His big sister started using it after seeing Demolition Man, and it caught on with the rest of the siblings, to the point where they thought it was a perfectly normal phrase that everyone uses.

[TordelBack]

While by no means unique to my own clan, my favourite family obscurity still in almost daily use is "you look like the wreck of the Hesperus".

[Daveycandlish]

Going for a Brad Pitt = Going for a shit

You say Brad Pitt, we say Gladys Knight (shite). And if things don't work out as you hoped you report "she didn't turn up - just a couple of her backing singers"

[Noisybast]

"you look like the wreck of the Hesperus".

My mum uses that one!

[radiator]

We should start an eggcorns thread.

[TordelBack]

"you look like the wreck of the Hesperus".

My mum uses that one!

Thank Grud, I was starting to think it had died out.  I tried to set it as a sailing club Table Quiz clue ('Which 19th C maritime disaster was made famous by a Longfellow poem, and is used as a colloquial expression to describe a mess")  last year and was met by blank stares.

Another family favourite is to describe a tantrum or foul mood as a 'pook', derived from 'pooka' or 'puca', a watery equine monster from Irish folklore.  Usage: "He was in a proper pook".

[I, Cosh]

Blimey, I was always led to believe pookas were rabbits. Invisible, right enough, so they could just be saying that.

[Tiplodocus]

"Can you do me a cheese?"

For "Can you do me a favour?" Because one day I asked, by mistake, "Can you do me a cheese and get me a favour sandwich?"

And from Naked Gun that we say whenever tidying a room and finding something long lost "Hey, the missing evidence in the Kilner case.". Tiny Tips went "Oh, that's where that comes from!".

And we also use "I was born ready." and "If I'm not back in two hours, call the President."

[TordelBack]

Media-inspired ones are almost a separate sub-genre!

A good (and surprisingly satisfying) family expletive in regular rotation, 'oh Tartare Sauce',  courtesy of my daughters obsession with Spongebob. 

Courtesy of The Simpsons is the accepted liturgical response for a request for a cup of tea in our house: "First I had to drive you to the hospital, now this...".

Courtesy of Troll Hunter, we generally refer to our brace of brats in the third-person as Ringlefinch and Tosserlad.

Courtesy of Tolkien we generally refer to my wife's brother and his wife as 'the S-Bs' or more formally 'the Sackville-Bagginses', or individually as Lotho and Lobelia.  Don't ask why.

[Mardroid]

A phrase my mum used to say "...strike alike* a pigeon pie!" The full expression was "Oh my goodness gracious me! Strike alike a pigeon pie!", said in a kind of rhythmic sing-song way. As in "I wouldn't believe this let alone that.", although she seemed to say it mainly for fun when interacting with little kiddies (who loved it incidentally, mainly for the comical intonation than actually understanding it, I'd imagine. Quite a character my mum.).

I seem to remember asking her what it means (although in context you could sort of tell, although the words were nonsensical) and she just said "it means..." and repeated the expression back.

Goodness knows where she got it from.

She also used to use words like 'ariated' for agitated - possibly misspelt, my spell-checker certainly doesn't like it - and 'shirty'. As in "dontchoo get shirty/ariated with me!"

I was actually quite fascinated** in watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer year later where Spike (an English vampire character) actually says something like "No need to get shirty". I don't think I'd heard that word outside my own household so seeing it's more widely used than I'd thought was interesting.

I think 'ariated' is known outside my family too, although it's something I think we're more likely to see in a Dicken's novel than in 20th century parlance. I think it might have something to do with blustering and 'giving off hot air' in which case maybe the spelling should be 'airiated'. Spell-checker doesn't like either of these varied spellings. Heh.

*I think the word might have originally been 'alight' although it still doesn't make sense.

**I'm easily fascinated.

[Hawkmumbler]

Courtesy of Troll Hunter, we generally refer to our brace of brats in the third-person as Ringlefinch and Tosserlad.

That is awsome.

[JamesC]

One of my favourites is 'put the wood in the hole' meaning to shut the door.

Also, bathroom slang:

A boy named Sue - a poo

A Johnny Cash - a slash

[Hawkmumbler]

 

"Richard the third"- A Turd

"Dandelion and Birdcock"- thanks to my little (5yo) brothers speech impediment.

"The New Flesh"- One used by my step father and I to name our new age neighbours. Reference to Videodrome.