HOW MANY OF THESE ‘ENDANGERED’ SAYINGS DO YOU KNOW?

An article published last week about British sayings that are dying out (link to article below*) lists 50 phrases that are supposedly at risk of being lost from the English language. What hit home for me was that 68% of Brits said they had never heard or used the phrase “know your onions”, when I’d just written a piece with exactly that title…

You’d think that basing the survey on a sample of adults between 18 and 50 years of age would skew the outcome – surely the percentages would have been lower with a wider age group? At the other end of the scale, I’d love to see a survey of 50-80 year olds to see how many are familiar with words, say, from the …

Oh well, maybe knowledge of these endangered sayings does give away your age.  Anyway, for a bit of fun – how many do you know?

1.       Pearls before swine 78% (never use the phrase)
2.       Nail your colours to the mast 71%
3.       Colder than a witch’s tit 71%
4.       Pip pip 70%
5.       Know your onions 68%
6.       A nod is as good as a wink 66%
7.       A stitch in time saves nine 64%
8.       Ready for the knackers yard 62%
9.       I’ve dropped a clanger 60%
10.     A fly in the ointment 59%

11.   Keen as mustard 58%
12.   A flash in the pan 57%
13.   Tickety boo 57%
14.   A load of codswallop 56%
15.   A curtain twitcher 56%
16.   Knickers in a twist 56%
17.   Dead as a doornail 55%
18.   A dog’s dinner 55%
19.   It’s chock a block 55%
20.   Storm in a teacup 55%

21.   Could not organise a p*** up in a brewery 54%
22.   Not enough room to swing a cat 54%
23.   Flogging a dead horse 54%
24.   Toe the line 54%
25.   Popped her clogs 54%
26.   Drop them a line 53%
27.   Steal my thunder 53%
28.   A few sandwiches short of a picnic 53%
29.   A legend in one’s own lifetime 52%
30.   Be there or be square 52%

31.   Fell off the back of a lorry 52%
32.   A bodge job 52%
33.   Eat humble pie 52%
34.   Having a chinwag 52%
35.   Put a sock in it 52%
36.   Mad as a Hatter 51%
37.   Spend a penny 51%
38.   Cool as a cucumber 51%
39.   It’s gone pear shaped 51%
40.   It cost a bomb 51%

41.   Raining cats and dogs 51%
42.   See a man about a dog 51%
43.   It takes the biscuit 50%
44.   He’s a good egg 50%
45.   Snug as a bug in a rug 49%
46.   Chuffed to bits 49%
47.   Have a gander 49%
48.   Selling like hot cakes 49%
49.   Pardon my French 48%
50.   A Turn up for the books 45%

*