General Chat

Anybody heard of this phrase. I've used it since I was a nipper. If you google it you cant find any references to it. I would like to know its origins. Wasnt sure if it was a regional thing (I'm in Manchester) as my cousin who was brought up on the Isle of Wight had never heard of it (even though his mum is from Manchester???)

I've found a website (Randompottins - mystery of the Morley Dancers) that refers to "up the Morley Dancers" and "Molly Dancers" but I'm not sure why this dancing craze was associated with bedtime

I am also fron the north west Alison (Salford) and my parents used to use that phrase when sending us to bed
Jackie

I wonder if anybody from East Anglia/Cambridgeshire Area use it to mean bedtime? It seems Molly Dancers originated in this area. My great great grandparents came from Norwich so I wondered if they had used it before they came to Manchester.

My dad always used that expression. Was from Lancashire.

Happy days

Isn't it something to do with Dancer's prayers???

Found this if it helps

The Oxford Engl. Dict. says "dancers" is slang for "stairs"--only in plural--and doesn't explain why. The supporting quotations all refer to going upstairs, never down.
1671: Track up the dancers, go up the stayres.
1812 (a dictionary entry only)
1829: Come, track up the dancers, and dowse the glim.
1858: Come, my Hebe, track the dancers, that is, go up the stairs.

I'm originally from Mancheste and we always said up the dancers. So many strange local sayings. i.e. "Don't sit on that cold step you'll get chin cough in your bottom" what the blazes is chin cough?

Chin cough is whooping cough apparently. Maybe it gives you wind!!!

Hi Alison

My dad is from Sale and he used to say this about going upstairs.

He also used to say Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire when it was my bedtime.

There are so many replies about people saying it in the North West that it could be regional.

Dianne xx

LOL We live in Timperley so I think I will try that one! A guy in the office recognises the Bedfordshire one.

It sounds as if it might be rhyming slang, where only the first word of a pair is used.
So what would go with "dancers" and rhyme with "stairs"?
Unless it is "prayers" as suggested above, but I can't see the connection.

Well,
I'm from Devon and my parents always used to say up the dancers at bed time.
But I always used to think it was because we wanted to practice our tap dancing routine instead of going to
bed !! LOL

I remember it as a child in Lancashire...I never thought about its origin and just accepted that it rhymed with stairs ..

I am originally from Manchester and it was always said to me as a child.It's a bit like"put th'wood in th'hole ("shut the door"),and lots of other regional sayings I should think.although that sounds more like Yorkshire to me.

Small world Alison, my uncle Tom and Auntie Norah used to live at 3 Whitley Place Grange Estate Timperley.

Dianne xx

Cockney rhyming slang -

stairs
dancing bears
daisy dancers

Maybe that's where it comes from ?

Put the wood in the hole was a favourite in our house when i was a child. (Hampshire). Lived in a bungalow so no stairs, but knew the phrase up the wooden hill to bedfordshire. Never heard dancers though.

ann
glos

Another ex Manchester girl here, remember it well from my childhood, dad always used to count one, two, three up the mollydancers go thee.

I recon Dancing Bears is a good candidate for the root.

i'm from hampshire and we used


up the wooden hill to bedfordshire
and put the wood in the hole too

never heard the dancers one before.

Also *is the tide out * if you don't get a full cup of tea

* you smell like a pox doctors clerk* if we wore too much perfume