11 replies to this topic

[meggem]

has any one heard the meaning of 'giving down the banks'? I know it means to give some one a good 'telling off', but does anyone know where it comes from. I have mates in different parts of the country, and no one has heard of it, so i think it might be a local saying, 'for LOCAL people!!!!. Anyone help. Ta

[Griffin]

I'm fairly sure it's of Irish origin, and must have come into use here either via Liverpool or the many Irish immigrants in the 19th century. In his Hiberno-English Archive site, Terence Dolan, Professor of English at University College Dublin, mentions the expression, and defines it as giving someone a good telling off, but says its origin is obscure. If Terry Dolan can't explain it, it must indeed be obscure. I've heard one theory that it has something to do with falling off the raised part of a peat bog (down the banks) into the water, and hence carries the connotation of failure. A similar expression is giving someone "the rounds of the houses."

[familyman]

Wife uses this expression . Her family roots are in Liverpool.

[Alan]

"Rounds of the kitchen" was the expression in our family

[Alan]

Two strange expressions of mild abuse that I haven't heard since leaving school. Gobbin as in you bloody big daft gobbin and Dumb Cluck as in she's a dumb cluck that wench

Edited by Alan, 20 March 2009 - 09:13 AM.

[Harry]

I was often called 'a pie can' - meaning being stupid or daft.

[Alan]

God, I hadn't heard that one in 50 years. It was a favourite of my grandmother's

[leschip]

Gobbin is a saying from Barnoldswick, meaning thick. Anyone born in the town below the 'top lamp' is called a gobbin. I've no idea why.

[tessmop]

To be called a bullet head does that mean that person is headstrong or bad tempered?

[leschip]

Tess, I understood it to mean a bit dim

[SKYMAN]

nutty as a fruit cake,,,obvious meaning,
sick as a parrot.

[tessmop]

Hi Leschip,I won't say who it was just that it was said by a father to his son in the 1930's.