Thread: English pubs

In English pubs, ale was traditionally ordered by pints and quarts...
So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them ....
"Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."
It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"


Many years ago in England , pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service.

"Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

So....where does "Top of the Morning" come from then?

Thats an Irish term i believe vasili..

I just looked into a term that my Mother had always used..."I dont give a Tinkers damn!"...
From what I had found is one theory that I liked the most was the tinker which repaired old cooking pots and the such used to carry bread dough with him and from that bread he would make a 'well' which would hold the solder in place. After using the dough to dam the solder it wasnt worth anything.

A sweet man who has recently passed away worked a career as a navy man....He told me a story of the Brass monkey and the chilling cold..if anyone is interested...

Originally Posted by bill2006

In English pubs, ale was traditionally ordered by pints and quarts...
So in old England , when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them ....
"Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."
It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"


Many years ago in England , pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service.

"Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

Another theory on were the phrase comes from!
The phrase mind P&Q comes from the old printing press days where they had to make the pages up with individual letters for each character placed in a wooden printing block.
It was very easy to get the p’s & q’s mixed up or upside down.

Hence, mind your p’s & q’s
But most of the print industry in the UK lived in the pubs anyway.

Chris.

Yes Chris now that you say that Ive heard both...I love to listen to where common terms come from...

'Hobson's choice' is one of my favourites - apparently there was an chap Tobias Hobson who rented out horses. People used to go there to get a fresh horse to continue on their journey. However, they had no choice, and were always give the horse nearest the door - hence 'Hobson's choice', meaning no choice at all!

Top of the morning is indeed Irish

Kewel Trish. Id never heard that one!....

Do you guys/gals remember the saying:

"Night, night, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite" ?

Well here in the US bed bugs have been all but non-existant in the last 30 - 35 years, but are now making a comeback. I had heard that saying since i was a lil feller' and never knew what it meant. Then I read an article on bed bugs making a come back. < thats just GreaT! tis the last thing we need is something else to worry about! Bed Bugs actually chew on you while you are asleep which in turn is causing a phobia of them. The article I read ( cant remember where ) stated that people were moving out of the city/state they lived in to escape from the ferocious bite of the bed bug. Anyone out there actually seen one?

My mom used to say that to me when I was young...It terrified me!....I used to tell here thats no way to say good night and expect me to actually sleep!...lol
I never used that term with my sons...phobia...ya think?!.....lol
Im not sure of which you talking about but I have seen the microscopic bugs..ick..ick..ick...off this subject.....bad bad...lol

Top of the morning.
and they reply "and the rest of the morning to yourself"

In the 16th century, houses had thatched roofs, thick straw, piled high with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets-dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, etc.
lived in the roof. When it rained, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall out of the roof, which led to the saying,
"It's raining cats and dogs.

In 1890, a murderer named William Buckley, managed to illude the authorities and stay on the run for some years, however, the locals believed that he had no chance in living on the run for much longer and he was bound to get cauhgt sooner than later.. They were righ, Backley eventually got caught and executed 1902.. He simply had no chance.. hence the Aussie term used even today, you got 'Buckley's Chance'.

Originally Posted by kassi59

A sweet man who has recently passed away worked a career as a navy man....He told me a story of the Brass monkey and the chilling cold..if anyone is interested...

We say that here in the UK all the time Kate ..its enough to feeze the balls off a brass monkey ....meaning its really cold

It was something to do with the cannon balls on board ship that were stacked on something called a brass monkey ...once a certain temp the balls fell off ...or summat like that lol

Exactly Lincs!...The ship has a 'brass monkey' that held all the cannon balls stacked up in a nice pile..when the temps went below a certain cold degree (dont know exactly how cold) the monkey would expand and all the cannon balls would fall off and roll all over the ship!.
Cool...good job!

Thats the one kate :o)

Originally Posted by asirimarco

In the 16th century, houses had thatched roofs, thick straw, piled high with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets-dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, etc.
lived in the roof. When it rained, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall out of the roof, which led to the saying,
"It's raining cats and dogs.

The thatch also had a gap where it joined the walls, the eaves. When people talked outside the house the sound travelled in through the gaps and people inside could listen to the conversation. Hence the phrase 'eavesdropping'!

Don't we all know some useless things?

Son of a Gun!......


In the old days civilian women were allowed to live on naval ships; many became pregnant and had their child on board, usually near the midship gun behind a canvas screen. If the father was unknown, then the child was recorded in the ship's log as A son of a Gun

I always thought it was a son of an old wild west gunslinger lol

Handy site for sayings.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sayings.htm

Chris.