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 Oxford Dictionary of Social Media…
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%