We Brits really do come out with some odd stuff
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Speaking British English in a foreign country means being self-aware and kind. It means developing an understanding for which weird British sayings, slang words and colloquialisms can be used and will be understood from the context – and which ones you’d better save for banter with your other British mates.
You also start to think a lot more actively about your own language and the way you use it. So often, I’ve found myself about to come out with a certain phrase, only to stop myself at the last second, knowing that I’m just going to make my conversation partner hopelessly confused. Then, I wonder: “Why DO we say that? It’s so odd!”
Weird British sayings are ten-a-penny and as eccentric as the Brits themselves. If you don’t believe me, take a look at these…
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1. Who’s ‘she’, the cat’s mother?
Meaning: A rebuke (mainly to a child) for imprecisely referring to another, often higher-status female in the third person singular rather than using their true name.
My mum used to say this to me if I used the pronoun “she” to refer to another female, usually one who was present or at least within earshot of the conversation. “He” did not provoke the same response, which still puzzles me.
The origin of this now dated phrase is obscure but it seems to have sprung up during the 19th century.
2. It’s brass monkeys out there!
Meaning: It’s very cold outside.
This thoroughly odd expression is a shortened version of the longer “it’s so cold out there, it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey”.
Which, I think everyone can agree, is even weirder than the abridged version. Curiouser and curiouser!
Again, no-one knows exactly where the saying comes from. Many claim it’s an old Navy phrase. Back in the days when battles were fought using cannons rather than tanks, bombs and guns, the cannon balls used to be stacked on a brass structure called a monkey. When the ship passed through an area with extremely low temperatures, the metal would contract, causing the cannon balls to fall off it.
This naval website blows that explanation out of the water (pun intended). The racks for cannon balls were called “garlands”. A “monkey” has had several different meanings in a naval context, including a type of gun, but not a stand for cannon balls.
Guess we’ll have to leave the origins of this funny little British phrase shrouded in mystery. Or at least a pea-souper.
3. To have kittens
Meaning: To be extremely nervous or upset.
It is claimed that this phrase goes back to a Scottish superstition about pain experienced by women during pregnancy. The suffering expectant mother would believe that the root of her malady was a curse by a witch which had turned her unborn child into a litter of cats who were now scratching about on her insides trying to get out. The mothers-to-be would of course get very wound up by the thought of having been jinxed – hence the saying.
“I have to make a presentation at work this week and I’m having kittens about it.”
“My mum’s going to have kittens when she sees my new tattoo!”
4. How’s your father
Meaning: Euphemism for sexual intercourse or other sexual activity.
Now, despite some other rather colourful theories, the most probable origin of this phrase were the performances of the popular music hall comedian Harry Tate (1872-1940). In one of his sketches, his character would resort to asking “how’s your father?” if he didn’t know the answer to a question or otherwise became uncomfortable and wished to deflect.
The British took a long time to get over the uptight prudishness imposed upon us by the hyper-moralistic Victorians and remained quite unable to talk about sex in a direct and adult fashion until well into the 20th century – if not the new millennium.
Since human beings are always going to be interested in sex regardless of what societal mores prescribe, the number of phrases coined in British English to refer to sex in a less blush-inducing way ballooned.
Nudge-nudge-wink-wink, slap-and-tickle, hanky-panky, bonking, shagging, rogering, having it off…the list is endless.
Soldiers in the First World War used “how’s your father” quite generally as a way to refer indirectly to all manner of unpleasant things. But its usage solidified in peace time as a slang phrase for sex, which has remained.
5. Till the cows come home
Meaning: For a very long time.
This phrase has been around since the 1500s and probably comes from the notion of cows being put out to pasture for the day (or longer in the warmer months) and coming back “home” to the farmyard at the end of it at their own languid, leisurely pace.
“Mum’s on the phone with your nan. You’d better make your own dinner, they’ll be talking ‘till the cows come home.”
6. To be all mouth and no trousers
Meaning: Used (especially by women) to describe a pushy or over-confident male who engages in boastful talk and bravado but doesn’t back up his big talk with action.
There seems to be quite a lively debate going on as to whether the correct phrase is “all mouth and no trousers” or “all mouth and trousers” and which saying is a corruption of which. This dictionary of English slang does the diplomatic thing and states that both variants are fine.
Although we language pedants will happily argue until the cows come home (!) about the absence or presence of that little “no”, the meaning of the phrase and the context in which it is used is exactly the same.
“Pete’s such a poser. All mouth and no trousers.”
Fun fact! The Americans have their own phrase to describe such overconfident men. On the other side of the Pond, they are said to be “all hat and no cattle”.
7. All fur coat and no knickers
Meaning: Used to describe a woman who appears demure and elegant but who is really common or trashy.
I’m all into equality between the sexes and I think this is a good equivalent saying to “all mouth and no trousers” – this time aimed at the female of the species. It has the same superficiality-stripping function. Its sharp edges efficiently denude the object of the expression of their pretensions, exposing the reality and cutting them down to size.
“She looks like she drinks tea with the Queen, but don’t be fooled. She’s really as common as muck. All fur coat and no knickers.”
8. To be black over Bill’s/black over Bill’s mother’s
Meaning: Phrase used to comment on black clouds gathering, heralding rain.
This phrase was heard frequently heard at home when I was young. Because we lived in the north of England, where it rains a lot, but also because my mother is a veritable gold mine when it comes to weird British sayings.
It always confused me. Who was this Bill? Why did this mother of his seem to move around so often? She seemed to shift around at will with the weather – kind of like the storied pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
In fact, the eponymous “Bill” is likely to be Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last emperor of Germany who abdicated at the end of the First World War. Due to Germany’s chaotic and blustering foreign policy during his reign which would eventually end up causing havoc in Britain, Brits got into the habit of saying of any bad weather brewing was coming from Bill.
9. To go down the swanee/swanny
Meaning: To go wrong, to fail, to be completely lost/wasted.
The origins of this thoroughly British saying are also unclear. So, with no reliable citation references to lean on, I will simply pitch to you the popular theory: that it sprang from the words of an American minstrel song “Old Folks at Home”, written by Stephen Foster in 1851.
This is now the official song of the federal state of Florida (with amended lyrics) and is also known as “Swanee River”.
The first verse of the original Foster song was:
Way down upon de Swanee ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere’s wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere’s wha de old folks stay.
The “Swanee river” of the song refers to the Suwannee River which flows southwards through Georgia into Florida before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The corruption of the name was probably done to make it fit into the rhythm of the song.
We know that the song was very popular in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. How the song’s images of floating gently down the Swanee River leaked into colloquial British English and took on its negative connotations of waste or loss is unclear. I can but wonder – and chuckle quietly at my mum when she says it.
10. Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire
Meaning: To go to bed. Said either as a command to a child, or as an announcement that you are retiring to bed.
Oh, how many evenings in my childhood were brought to an end with this phrase! Time to go upstairs, wash my face, clean my teeth and get some shut-eye – and leave my parents to watch some “grown-up TV”.
Even though, as an adult, I can stay up as long as I want, I still say this when I’m home and feeling the pull of a nice cosy bed at night.
“This has been such a nice evening – but I’m shattered. I’m off up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. See you tomorrow morning.”
No tricky origins here: the wooden hill is the wooden staircase you would have to climb up, and Bedfordshire is just a playful way of saying ‘bed’. It’s apparently been said since the 1600s, although its popularity really took off in the 20th century.
11. And finally…
Depending on where you are and who your relatives are, a kid’s favourite question, “What’s for dinner/tea?” might be answered by a harassed parent with:
“Sh*t with sugar on.”
“Kippers with custard.”
“A chase round the table and a kick up the cat.”
“Bee’s knees and chicken’s lips.”
And these are the ones I found on a single Reddit thread! There must be as many phrases to fob off hungry kids as there are British families.
In our house, we had this:
“What’s for afters?” (“afters” is an English slang word for dessert)
“Windmill pudding. If it goes round, you get some.”
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More articles for fellow English language nerds:
Old-fashioned words and phrases in British English
Obsolete words in English that we need to bring back
10 British English words of Indian origin
Northern English words from Old Norse
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