..."wizard" would be rather apt.

Jehosaphat!

"Your cheque's in the post"

is a supremely evocative phrase. My mum, in fact, still uses it.

Crumbs!

'Soft Ned', and 'If The Wind Changes You'll Stay Like That'. I am running a struggling one man campaign to reintroduce 'Poltroon', 'Rapscallion', 'Wastrel','Ne're Do Well ( a personal favourite)' 'Cloth Eared Egg','Footpad' etc, and even more recent terms like 'Yobo' and 'Soundrel' which are so sadly in decline. Do your bit, please, - if you're going to call in sick over the Christmas period, just say that your 'Doxy has Pox'.

due for a revival ?

Oh, and toe rag (toerag ?)

"Am I TOTALLY surrounded by poltroons?!"

nincompoop

Cheese.

my mums personal favourite. Oh, and 'half-acre' (its an Irish thing)

referring to a mischevious small child, a Geordie thang employed by me mam often.

..

She used to say "five and twenty" rather than twenty five, which I liked. Also "Lumme" and "Lawks-a-mercy", which are seldom heard; and "Stone the crows" which was memorably revived by Jim Broadbent when he won his Oscar.

Meanwhile an old friend of my mother's used to use some great old Forces slang, the one I most remember being "he's as dim as a Toc H lamp." When he saw an attractive woman he'd exclaim "I'd rather play with her than the Chatham town band!"

my eunuch and my fool...

a punch up the bracket? Stone me.

I blame a childhood addiction to Hancock

cakehole !

I try to use the adjective 'bally' - as in bally good coffee, this! - frequently, but end up sounding nothing more than a mountebank.

Poppycock is also good, especially in the workplace.

On Test Match Special last summer, Christopher Martin-Jenkins called someone 'a bit of a clot'.

scrote

toodlepip

Strangely, "bollocks" is quite mild in NZ so I take pleasure in using to old ladies, vicars and other easily-shocked sterotypical figures.

and 'Donnybrook'

Nay is due for a comeback.

Actually, I live in Germany and the Germans say 'nay' (nee) all the time. Very satisfying to use.

and "Ballyragging"!

poppycock and twaddle

Something I use now and again. Not particularly old-fashioned but some of the young feller me lads I work with sometimes look askance at me and ask 'Wot?' with a glottal stop.

..as I'm cabbage-looking" - as my gran used to say.

"Acting the giddy goat" was another of her favourites.

If you asked where one of my grans where something was and she didn't know, the answer would be "Up in mother's room behind the clock." The same question to my other gran would get you "Up my arse hanging on a nail."

Very different people were my grandmothers.

Okey-dokey, everyone?

...as my Bolton lass Mother in Law puts it, meaning things are now all sorted.

A girl at work refers to someone being a bit drippy as a "ninny" which is fun.

mostly relate to the "Incident Reports" I have to read at work.

Someone somewhere appears to be living in Victorian times judging by their use of language.

"fracas", "broohaha", "hoo-ha" and "rumpus" have all recently made appearances. Rumpus remains my favourite.

I'm quite keen on a few Scottish archaisms re-entering the language. I still occasionally hear the odd "jings" but surely "crivens" and "help ma boab" are due a return.

"Help!Murder!Polis!" continues to be used in regular speech in some parts of Glasgow i have to report.

Infinitely more appealing than going on a "mini-break"

"He couldn't afford to buy a mouse a pair of drawers"
and (re: an untidy room) "It's like a pox doctors surgery in here"
..and my wife says "My Giddy Aunt" all the time.

is one of my favourites. Also: -

All over her like a cheap suit!

In like Flynn !

Shameless Hussy !

Surely, Shane it's 'Dressed-up like a Pox Doctor's Clerk!'

'Faffing' as in 'Stop faffing around, and get on with it!'

That'll be 75p sir.

That's what my granny used to say about anything she found strange or that she disapproved of.

'Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire' (off to bed).

..a rather good Small Faces track.

Some years ago, I was working in Lancashire on a very stressful project at a Power Station. There was a significant amount of "industrial language" used by all the project team and the station staff : to the point where it all sounded the same. The air hadn't just turned blue, it had turned dull.

As a large Jock working mainly with English people, I found that saying "Crikey!" had a much more powerful effect of surprise than the C word that was expected from members of my tribe. I can still picture the faces of the station team the first time they came in to report the day's many failures and heard my response of "Crikey, that's disappointing". They laughed like drains, for the first time in weeks.

Since then, I have done my best to use Crikey, Jings and Crivvens, and avoid the more traditional words of industrial language.

ha'p'orth.

Don't be soft.

My godfather's.

All round Will's mother's.

Scallywag. I like the sound of it, too. Scallywag.

Heavens to Betsy.

Mrs T insists I make words up. But in my Mother's family a "shimmy" was a vest - shimmy shirt...and an apple past its best, a bit spongy, is known as "wooly". Anyone else use these words? Or did I dream them? Origin possibly from South Wales...

Always liked that. No idea what it means.

And 'By the Cringe' is a firm favourite in our house too.

Hasn't this seen a revival amongst The Young People recently? I read about it and thought it was nonsense 'til I heard some 13 year-old say it to her friend on the tube...

...and with luck we'll see the revival of 'Blue Blistering Barnacles!', 'Thundering Typhoons!', Coelocanths!' and other Haddockisms, including the aforementioned marvelous 'Poltroons!'.

used recently by a friend and shoe-horned into every conversation I can these days!

'The curse of Cromwell on you!' is relatively obscure but still in use among some older Irish people and I use it myself to ginger along non-cooperative PCs, printers etc. Its etymology is thought to lie in Cromwell's repatriation of certain unruly Irish from fractious areas of the Pale to the poorer lands west of the Shannon: 'To Hell or to Connacht!'

I'm on a personal crusade to bring this wonderful word back into common usage.

I was watching that family tree programme with Tim from the Office and when confronted with the news that his great grandfather and grandmother were blind - he kept saying "oh blimey...".

Blimey was originally "Blind Me".

I like the following out of fashion sayings...

Fitter Than A Butcher's Dog
Slicker Than Snot On a Doorhandle
Bunch of Fives
Hard Cheese

date.

if he saw someone that was 'a bit of a sight' would say,

'The things you see on the street when you haven't got your 12-bore!'

Cricket!

Interesting article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimminy_Cricket

As in, "He made a bit of a chump of himself". An old favourite of mine.

... creases double in hysterical laughter when, from our position on the terraces at a Championship club, his father or I berate players (mostly our own, I must admit) with: "You're playing like a tallywhacker, man".

just informed me that she had a "snog" with a young man she met on Friday. To which I replied "Oh my giddy aunt". 2 for the price of 1, spiffing!

"I'll go to the foot of our stairs" --- which has a wonderful range of possible etymologies on Google -- perhaps DH can advise

But norks will do nicely

pear shaped...

calling someone a "saggermaker's bottom knocker" when they missed a simple chance for Wolves once. No idea what it meant but it clearly meant he was irked.

"They'd queue for a shite in an envelope, those buggers".

"He wants to know the quickest way to Meg's arse and the fastest way up it".

...what my mum used to call someone - usually me - who had fallen short in the common sense stakes.

I'm personally rather fond of 'By Jupiter' - a kind of first principles 'By Jove'.

A room or house that is very untidy I've heard referred to as being "like a mad woman's shite"

is a lovely word. Vulgar without being rude.

One my Dad often uses is "Chops" when talking about the lower half of your face. I like "Mush" (pronounced moosh), which is also a good alternative to "Mate".

My Wife, who's from t'North, often says,

"You make a better door than a window" if I stand in front of the telly, which is quite jolly - not sure if it's arcane enough to be featured here though.

Seems to have made an unlikely return among the young folk. It gives me hope for the world every time I hear it.

cor blimey

My wife's originally from Liverpool and will occasionally describe a posh person's speech style as "far back" . I've yet to hear anyone else use it.

Would describe a nosey person as someone who seemed to need to know 'the far end of the fart and which way the wind blows'

which is just tickety-boo.

Dido pronounced the same as that woman on eminem tracks. another one my grandad used to call me and my brother. (Actually I've just Googled it and it's not too pleasant. Good job he's dead or I would've punched the bastard out, bless him. No I actually can't believe he would've known what it meant, it's so gross. God Almighty I'm pretty shocked at that). Surely there's another explanation?

Used (frequently) when badly hungover - as in 'I've got a head like a robber's dog' - heard in from Mike Harding in the early 80s.

How about punchable nun or hedge drab,offensive maybe but if you're Katie Price or a member of Girls Aloud apt.

"Old Chaw-Bacon" as a term of abuse.

From a They Might be Giants song:
"you're a weasel overcome with dinge"

Also - how about the word "Phizzog" for face?

I've been trying unsuccessfully to put all of these into common usage for decades...

... as two short planks
Bald as a coot (or they really bald?)
Rare as Hens Teeth (Rocking Horse shit?)
Lummy
Lorks-a-lordy (my bottoms on fire)
Gnats cock/gnats scrotum (as a measurement of "a small amount")
smidgeon (another small amount)

This thread reminded me of an old English teacher at my school in the 70s. He had a fine line in insults - cotyledon (which could be followed by brain or head) and pikan.
I can find a definition of cotyledon but am unable to trace "pikan". Has anyone any idea what it might be? I'm sure that if any of the Massive was a pupil in his class they will know exactly the teacher I mean.

... as in Irish, you personalise nouns by adding the suffix an... as in idiot=amadan. A pikey was used for years to describe those who participatede in the 1798 rebellion; no weapons as such were available to them other than pikes- so that's what they used. Not too effective against musket fire - as they were soon to discover to their cost..Now used both in Ireland and the UK as an insult not unlike chav, but usually more indicative of itinerant social origins rather than general white tracksuitedness.

Two glorious curses from my neck of the woods (Irish border country) seldom heard these days:

'Yer man is two ends of a bollocks' and 'Yer man is a dying-looking bastard'. 'Scaldy', after the nickname for a baby bird, can be applied to a 'dying-looking bastard' during said d-lb's embryonic phase: 'look at the scaldy head on yer man'.

I suppose it means full-tilt, hammer & tongs etc.

One of my Gran's catchphrases so could be a bit of Scottish Essex-Suffolk border fusion type thing going on - but not sure exactly where it comes from.

for someone procrastinating was either
'like a fart in a fit' or 'like a fart in a trance'

Like Death warmed up... was a favourite old simile for someone pale or sickly.

I also like ' A mouth like a zoo-keepers boot' - of Brummie origin for dry/foul tasting mouth.
Hungry - 'My stomach feels like my throats been cut'.
Of Humour - 'As dry as a Weetabix sandwich'

like a brides nightie

..my father-in-law that was, a third generation New Zealand rail worker, would describe himself as "feeling like a bag full of ripped arseholes."

Old Sussex expressions I am rather fond of are "somewhen" and "anywhen."

Portsmouth and, I believe, London phrase for a younger sibling. Even whn he's 6'6" and built like an excremental outhouse.

Portsmouth and, I believe, London phrase for a younger sibling. Even when he's 6'6" and built like an excremental outhouse.

An elderly work colleague of mine used to refer to his feet as "aching like the dickens". Also Shanks Pony, referring to somebody travelling by foot.

He's a cad and a bounder.
Although in these supposedly classless days I guess bounder is hard to apply to anyone.

well, that's the way the cookie crumbles...

.

My grandmother - Irish born - would describe any overweight girl as being "beefed to the ankle like a Mullingar heifer". I still use it, although mostly now only in the privacy of my own head.

a phrase used by my wife - not sure what it means (Warwickshire?)

also 'We're short of nothing we haven't got'.

"Christ on a bike"

like a tart's window box.

Piecan - a favourite of my Nan's.

Mr and Mrs Piecan - The Giddy Husband - a film from 1915.

My Giddy Aunt is a good one but, I think, bettered by 'You're a giddy kipper'.

So much better than Hurry Up!

:-)

Fine words butter no parsnips

...is a word I still like to (possibly over-) use, but seems rather out of favour these days.

onanism

... "stepping out" with that young lady. Suppose you're "living over the brush" with her?

I'm particularly fond of the phrase "it was the most EXTRAORDINARY thing" - it adds a sprinkling of Lumley/Attenborough magic to any anecdote.

And from similarly posh lineage, I am keen to get "quite" its original meaning of "completely" - as opposed to "a bit" - back. As in "it was quite wonderful", or indeed "it was quite extraordinary".

Surely it's time to bring back 'berk'? Thought this was quite a chipper insult until I heard it was derived from the Cockney 'Berkshire Hunt'!

..young shaver"

your guts for garters.

Kindly cut a groove!

go soak your head in a barrel!

Would love to see that one come back

as the great W C Fields was wont to exclaim.
Also, when offering someone a seat, he'd point at it and say "put it in there" .

by using the phrase "Odd's Bodkins", which later learnt refered to the devil's darning needle. There was probably a spot of nob-allusion going on there too, which is what makes the olden days such a thrilling depository of covert filth.

As in going out with a lass.

Still in heavy use in the North East.

My aunts and uncles would ask me 'Are you courtin' yet?' with great regularity in my youth. Over a long period of time and with increasing desparation until I finally was. I am quite, quite ugly.

'Well fuck me pink and call me Rosy' was popular in may part of south Hampshire in the 1960s

'Well fuck me pink and call me Rosy' was popular in may part of south Hampshire in the 1960s

while rubbing your chin if you questioned the validity of your schoolfriends claims. Or in extreme cases "Jimmy reckon". I used this on my son tonight, I'd forgotten just how annoying it could be especially as he doesn't have a clue who Jimmy Hill is.

My mum uses this expression when referring to a time that was prior to my birth. I think it's quite charming and use it with my own children.

e.g.

"Was I a baby when England won the World Cup, Dad?"
"Oh, no - you were still in God's pocket."