What phrases have your parents or grandparents used that are no longer popular?

“Take the bitter with the sweet”

“Great Day in the Morning”

“Make like a tree and get out of here leave.

Phrases I picked up from my grandparents that I still use to this day:

“Now we’re cooking with gas”

“That’s cool as a moose and twice as hairy”

“Let’s get our ducks in a row”

“She’s the fuzz of my peach, the pit of my prune”

“That’s using your noggin”

“He’s a case without a cover”

“There’s no flies on her”

Slower than molasses in January.

Land Sakes! (Grama)

“What can’t get up can’t get out” (Gramps when we used to chastise him for undoing his belt and slightly dropping his pants to tuck in his shirt)

“Look at the ass on that tomato” (great uncle)

Jumping Jehoshaphat! (granny)

“I look like a turd under a wash bucket” (Granpa when he was forced to wear a fancy hat)

They also had some very colorful expressions that are not PC in the least and can’t repeat them here.

Several racist ones that don’t bear repeating.

“Going around Robin Hood’s barn.”
“Shit or get off the pot.”
“I see, said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw.”

“Dadgum.”
“Hells bells!” my grandma said that once, and it made me shiver.
“The sense God gave you.”

“apple of my eye.”
“new-fangled”
“mosey”
“give him a ring” (to phone someone.)
“bless her heart”
“raisin’ Cain”
“gimme some sugar” (a kiss)
“Sure’s shootin’”
“The lights are on but nobody’s home”
“hell’s bells”
“knee high to a grasshopper”
“close, but no cigar” (This means something different since Bill and Monica.)
“everybody and his brother”

“You’re gonna drive me to drink.”

My Father used to say he was “Fine as frog’s hair… split!”

My Mom used to call people dumb bunnies when she was mad because she would never curse. she also used to say..” I spent too much money today. Your father is going to shoot me with a bazooka!”

Lift that barge, tote that bale, pluck them chickens! Yes, time to clean my room once again.

I think she tacked on the last bit about the chickens.

Calling Brazil Nuts “ni**er toes.”

“you can stuff your sorries in a sack!!” —George Castanza anyone?

@PupnTaco I remember eating “toes” at Christmas time when I was little!

Ugh, I’m glad the past is where it is sometimes

No longer used by some, but i still love them

Whippersnapper
Horse feathers
Shenanigans

Saying that something is “tuckered out”.
Also, as a child, my grandmother knew those little black licorice candy “babies” as “ni@@er babies” and my mom grew up calling them “tar babies”. My grandma is embarrassed about it now, although she didn’t know any better as a kid.

Golly.
Hate when people say that.

“Top of the morning to you” followed by “And the rest of the day to you” I know one of our more senior jellies who still says this :D

I would stay with my grandpa a lot as a child. He would get angry at me because I was a little shit. He would say, “Boy you better shape up or I will beat you like a drunk Mexican on a pinanta.”

@PnL: The link isn’t working…and I really wanna’ know :)

@pnl
That may be old in America, but isn’t it a famous saying in Ireland?
“Top o da mornin to ya!”
It does sound kind of old though.

@auggie – it works ! it works!

@90s_kid – maybe. i just remember him saying it to me once and me responding with “um…what?” Then I had to google it to give the appropriate response :P

Oh, I remember one: If you don’t do such-and-such right now, I will come down on you like a ton of bricks! I thought it was a “angry black lady” thing to say, because I’d only ever heard my auntie say it – that is until I saw an episode of Monty Python where Graham Chapman’s General character says that very thing in the exact cadence, if not the same accent. Every time I see that link now, I crack up.

Don’t piss down my neck and say it’s raining.

Tough titties said the kitty when the cat ran dry.

Gumption.

My Grandmother, who frequently made “Home Brew” would in reverie getting “Snapped-up”.
Dad always says,...“don’t sh-t the poor people”
”.... that will go like a ship through a tin horn”.
”...she’s a Floozy”
Best advice, always keep your own a-s covered.

My grandfather always used to say about people he didn’t like “may s/he grow like an onion, with his/her head in the ground.” Not sure if that’s an old people thing or a Yiddishkeit thing.

“That boy couldn’t poor piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heal.”

Calling trash, “rubbish”. As in, “tomorrow is rubbish day”.

“Blasphemy,” too.

my mother used to tell me “don’t be fresh” or “don’t be snotty.”

my grandmother used to have this saying “what do you think, my name is Fink and I press pants for nothing?” that meant what do you think i’m a sucker?

Joe Schmo from Cocomo.

Gag a maggot is one I remember.

After anyone would say “so?” my grandfather would respond: “sew buttons on my grandma’s underpants.”

“By George, she’s got it!”

After burping: “bring it up again and we’ll vote on it.”