As my granny used to say.....

Expressions have been as rare as teeth in a chicken here.

that's awesome!

"Cooch"????

My step-dad always says 'it takes a man not a shirt button' whenever anyone mock-threatens him.

Sorry i just realised i didnt phrase this very well . Shes a british granny and instead of saying twenty five past five, would say five and twenty past five

I say jiffy

Touche.

it will very much affect a headline in next week's her4ld magazine.

Ni99er, p@ki, etc etc... Not that I actually use them myself, obviously, but I suspect eyebrows would be raised if I did...

Here's another: es't = 'That is'. ie. es't proper reet, lad = 'That is very good, young man'.

cob on = a sulky manner

"I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse between two bread vans."

...although, most of them are just "standard" Irish/Lancashire turns of phrase that sound CRAZY and out of place in Minnesota.

I love all the Caithness/Doric ones that my mum comes out with which I have no idea how to spell. FOr example, the word for a dog is a bowf (maybe bouf, I'm not sure) but our dog Sandy was always referred to as "the bowf", "bowfy" or "Sandy-bowf". This is not weird to people in the North of Scotland, but elsewhere can cause much hilarity. My mum also has a fab word for feeling a bit weak and queasy, which is pronounced fee-oun (rhyming with noun) which I use a lot and have never heard anyone else say.

A piece of jam - a jam sandwich.

See, up here that's a piece AND jam. Unless you are Oor Wullie, in which case it's a jeely piece.

Er, my Gran used to call teeth 'rackles'. "Rub yer rackles or the English'll get yeh", she used to say.

True story.

bowg = stomach (that's a Caithness one, definitely)
keeker = black eye
bauchle = a scabby old shoe (or a skanky person by extension)
away in a dwam = daydreaming (OK, I have heard that off other people, but not that many)

I can't even think of things that might be odd because I just use words I grew up listening to and it never occurred to me that they might be odd. I only found out a couple of weeks ago that scaffy wasn't in common usage down here (focus group = three blokes in the pub).

Xpost = Fit as a butcher's dog, innit?

Face as long as a wet weekend.

xp: my mom says "fat."

"Crotchety" - someone who's angry and upset: "Don't get crotchety". I've never heard this used since, but it's pretty great!

Really? I've heard this all over the States, but usually only in conjunction with phrases like "crotchety old man."

Gadgie/gadgiecoff = a bloke
Burach/guddle/midden = a great big untidy mess (much like my house at the moment)

The best insult I ever heard my dad shout at the football was to any useless striker who couldn't direct a header = "he's got a head like a Tobermory Tattie". (it's a sweetie).

ailsa: i think yr etymology might yet be proved correct. either way: thank you all who responded.

i've seen this at the bookstore and one day i'm going to sit down in the starbucks and read it:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0312307411.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,32,-59_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Pronouncing "lunatic" to rhyme with "pneumatic".

My Gran (Paisley born) had a brilliant reserve of bastardized French terms, I really wish I had written them all down before she passed, I only remember the more obvious ones - Stank, Ashet, Jigot.

I think my fave saying of her's was 'What's fur ye, will no go by ye'

Now you're talking my language... literally.

I don't know if this is a Paisley/Renfrew thing or not, but I also liked her punctuation of 'says I' (start) and 'ah sais' (end) in a sentence.

With the added potential confusion of 'aye' and "I', I remember her saying to me once 'says I, aye, ah sais'

What are "stank, ashet, jigot"?
(sounds like a law firm...)

Overshoes meaning boots

Stank as in very smelly in the past tense?

Ashet is a cooking dish, and specifically one you make/buy a steak pie in and is from assiette.

Jigot is spelled gigot, like the French, because it's a centre cut lamb leg chop.

Stank is a drain, but I think it's also used to describe stagnant water.

That's me learnt.

Ta (as my granny used to say...)

XP or Telt :)

oh yeah as in “that’s that doon the stank”

Stank is a drain, from Old French, estanc for a pond or lake

Ashet, I know from ashet pie, is a large dish, from the French for plate, assiette.

Gigot (not Jigot) is a leg of mutton or lamb, taken directly from the French

To this day, I call those Vicks inhaler sticks "mentholatum," as that is how my grandfather (1917-1993) always referred to them.

Beelin' = angry, furious

"Ah'm beelin' Scotland were in Pot 2 in the Euro draw and still ended up gettin' the same sides they aye get".

Aye = always
[img=https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/kBYAAOSwmoxh6BP9/s-l300.jpg]https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/kBYAAOSwmoxh6BP9/s-l300.jpg[/img]

Oops...

[img=https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/kBYAAOSwmoxh6BP9/s-l300.jpg]https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/kBYAAOSwmoxh6BP9/s-l300.jpg[/img]

Fuck it, it's refusing to work.

'Aye...funny man, d'y think his heid zips up the back...?' (told to a young me, in reference to my Grandad)

“if it’s me on bongos and Mark E Smith, then it’s The Fall”

https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/kBYAAOSwmoxh6BP9/s-l300.jpg

My old nan was from Wakefield. She'd mostly lost her accent by the end of her life but never sounded so Yorkshire as when she used her catchphrase: 's/he's short of nowt he's got'.

my grandma was kind of a self hating cockney who took elocution lessons and alcohol would change her accent and manner entirely (in a good and fun way most of the time)

keeker = black eye

Which, of course, is derived from one of my favourite Scots words.

https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/keek_v1_n1

I bet ye were up tae high doh!

― We Buy a Hammer For Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 16:53 (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Couthy continuity announcer on Channel 4 has just used this phrase.

fellas I’ve had a good run but I think I’ve finally had the radish

I heard a Northern Irishman use 'up tae high do' a few years ago, interesting that it had legs, and I always wondered if it was related to 'do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do'