General Chat

Have looked at several cockney rhyming slang - english translators online and although "up the apples and pears" is the most common slang for stairs (I grew up with that one too), dancing bears is also rhyming slang for stairs.
I don't understand why it becomes daisy dancers though!

This is from the National Geographic.

The origins of the Cockneys' distinctive rhyming slang date back to the 15th century, though it's thought to have really taken hold in the 1800s, when street traders and criminals developed it as a means of covert communication to conceal illicit practices.



Maybe be all the cockneys who used "get up the dancers" moved to Manchester?!!!!!! :-)

I am from the north east - my mum's family from Ireland via Wales and my dad's from Norfolk.

I can remember being told to go up the 'Dickey Dancers' when it was time to go to bed

Don't know where it came from and only just remembered it through reading this thread.

Christine

I think it could be to do with the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers film where thy danced up the stairs in their dance routine ...Cant remember the name of the film,

Seems its nation wide not a local thing .... Just my thoughts on it LOL

..............and in some parts of the country they're the jolly dancers.......................

I'm going up them now ................ jolly, dicky or daisy!

Night all,

Julia

PS Eavie - not for nothing........it was very interesting.

Have a gloat at the Germins for us Julia!!

Off she goes up the dancers!!!

Know Whitley well Diane - My cousin lives on Fairywell.

Loving the "is the tide out" saying. LOL

I'm determined to keep words like pantry, ginnel and frock alive with all these sayings

No, just about to,

Am delighted! Husband and son went to the match!

Night, night.

Hi all, I'm from Northumberland and thats what I was always told when it was bedtime. 'up the dancers'

Pretty sure it's not from Norwich or Norfolk as I am Norwich born and bred and so was my Mum, and I have never heard that.
Dad was from Buckinghamshire and I heard 'up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire' many times, also 'up in Nellie's room behind the clock', when I asked where something was.

Lizx

Found this -

Up in Annie's room behind the clock" is a humorous catch phrase used (almost exclusively in the UK) in reply to a question about the location of a missing item or person ("So, where do you suppose my car keys are?" "Probably up in Annie's room behind the clock.").

According to Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Catch Phrases, the original form, dating to the British Army just before World War I, was simply "Up in Annie's room," a joking reply to an inquiry (often from a sergeant or other superior) as to the whereabouts of another soldier. As this exchange usually took place either in the barracks or in the field, the humor came from the fact that there was no possible "Annie," let alone a room upstairs in which to dally with her.

The phrase "Up in Annie's room" percolated into civilian use after the war but apparently lost its absurdist bite in an environment where the absence of an "Annie" was no longer a given. The subsequent addition of "behind the clock" (or the variant "behind the wallpaper") transformed the phrase from one meaning "an impossible place" to one suggesting an extremely obscure and improbable place.


In our house, if we couldn't find something it was because "Humpty Back Jack" had got it.

We were visiting my parents in UK when my eldest was 4, I opened the fridge and saw that all 6 yoghurts had holes in their lids, I asked son if he knew anything about it and he said that Humpty Back Jack had done it!

Coming from Essex, it was either -

Up the Apple and Pears, to Uncle Ned,lay your head on the Weeping Willow, and go to Bo- Peep.

Or Up the Wooden Hill.

We always said put the wood in the hole to shut the door also.

The part of Essex I lived is now East London, and one Grandparent had come from Mile End,London, and the other from Essex, bordering Suffolk. So I expect that is where the two sayings came from.

Another saying that always amused me, if it looked like rain was, 'It is ever so black over Will's mothers.'

Mo

Another great one gran used to come out with if she was trying to make an excuse to get out of something was "I can't, I've got a bone in my leg". It's great when my 3 year old says it.

Alison - I love that one!

Has nobody else got Humpty Back Jack in their house?

OMG my dad says that too !!

Dianne xx

What - Humpty Back Jack?

No sorry Julia - bone in my leg.

Dianne xx

Got a bone in my leg was one of ours, also for anything missing it was in a bottle on the roof., or where shall I put it, in a bottle on the roof.

Remember that one May....
Here's another odd saying....when asked "where are you going"
Answer..."there and back to see how far it is"

What's for tea? - Three jumps at the cupboard door

Where's your manners? - Gone out with me grandma