General Chat

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

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

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

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

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?!!!!!! :-)

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!

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

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

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

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

Cockney rhyming slang -

stairs
dancing bears
daisy dancers

Maybe that's where it comes from ?

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

Dianne xx

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.