The Framers Forum

Or 'whoever' used to say, or still does.

If I ever asked my Dad for money he would say it would be like 'giving a donkey strawberries'


If I ever asked him 'Have you seen my ..... shoes', etc he'd always say 'Hanging up, in the oven'


Most my family, on my Mum's side are from the Montgomeryshire area - Shropshire borders or the 'Marches'

'Mustn't' = 'MUNNER'
'Don't' = 'DUNNER'
Isn't = 'INNER'

Famous saying from that part of the world... "You munner say dunner it inner perlite"

Or pigs, cherries!

And 'shouldn't start a sentence with and' my dad used to warm his arse on the fire, rattle the change in his pocket, and if guests were staying just that bit too long, yawn and take off his tie.
Can't ever remember what he said. Passed on when I were no but a lad.

My pops used to get upset and send us, me and my siblings, to bed. He would follow us up and tell us, Put your face in the Pillow!!!

So we did. We lay flat on our bellies and put our faces straight in the pillow. We found out years later we would basically pass out. We always woke up a bit woozy.

I do it once in a while now for fun


PL

A depression child, stationed in England during WWII, my father came home with an English War Bride.

Not sure if this phrase came from the era, his experience being raised in Iowa farm country as a boy, his Military travels or just him in particular being somewhat rude... But whenever someone he knew well (my mother for example), would attempt to correct him or intervene, rather than respond with "Mind your own business", he would instead spout back...

"Teach Your Grandmother to Suck Eggs."

Any clues to the history of this phrase?

John

I think that at one time eggs were pierced at either end and the contents sucked out leaving the shell to be painted or decorated as an ornament. Perhaps this job was left to the toothless old grannies.

It is an odd, saying but its meaning is clear enough: don’t give needless assistance or presume to offer advice to an expert. As that prolific author, Anon, once wrote:

Teach not thy parent’s mother to extract
The embryo juices of the bird by suction.
The good old lady can that feat enact,
Quite irrespective of your kind instruction.


Many similar expressions have been invented down the years, such as Don’t teach your grandmother how to milk ducks, and don’t teach your grandmother to steal sheep.

These have the same kind of absurd image as the version you quote, which has survived them all. It was first recorded in 1707 in a translation by John Stevens of the collected comedies of the Spanish playwright Quevedo: “You would have me teach my Grandame to suck Eggs”. Another early example, whimsically inverted, is in Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, published in 1749: “I remember my old schoolmaster, who was a prodigious great scholar, used often to say, Polly matete cry town is my daskalon. The English of which, he told us, was, That a child may sometimes teach his grandmother to suck eggs”.

But the idea is very much older. There was a classical proverb A swine to teach Minerva, which was translated by Nichola Udall in 1542 as to teach our dame to spin, something any married woman of the period would know very well how to do. And there are other examples of sayings designed to check the tendency of young people to give unwanted advice to their elders and betters.

Regarding eggshells left intact for decorating, etc, you blow the contents out, not suck them - UUUUUGGGHH!!!

So is it ok to teach your granny to blow eggs then John?