How To Confuse English Speakers With English

by Neil Bamforth

Did your mother or grandparents have any phrases that made no sense at all to you? Mine did. I spoke English perfectly well, albeit with a northern accent, but, there were occasions when I didn’t have the foggiest what they were on about. Even phrases that, to this day, remain in common use often mean nothing at all to many people, despite the fact they share the same language.

My mother used to say to me, ‘A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse’ – I’m sorry? Come again? Have you been on the gin again? What the hell are you babbling about?

According to the internet, it means that you might as well not bother responding to a comment as it will make no difference.

Then why not just say “Don’t bother answering”? Why talk absolute and utter gibberish to your kids. Is it any wonder I grew up vaguely deranged?

My mother also loved to say, ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. A bird? What’s it doing in your hand? Is it dead? Why would a possibly deceased bird be worth two more in a bloody bush? Are they dead or alive? Is that gin bottle empty yet?

‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ means, according to the internet, it’s better to have the certainty of a small thing than the possibility of something greater which may come to nothing.

Then say that you daft bat. How the hell I got an English qualification at school, given the gibberish I had to listen to at home, is beyond me.

There’s more as well. My mother may have spoke English but, it has to be said, frequently not as I knew it.

If she decided I’d misbehaved, did she explain that I had to teach me the correct way to behave? Of course not.

“You’ll be getting a bunch of fives!” she would exclaim. A bunch of fives? Five what? Daffodils? They come in bunches. Bananas? You’re giving me a load of five pound notes? What are you driveling about? Oh God there’s still half a gin bottle left.

‘A bunch of fives’ incidentally, means you’re about to get a punch. Four fingers and a thumb being the ‘bunch of fives’.

Does America have any demented parents and grandparents who used to say things to you that might has well have been said in mandarin? Did you have any older relatives who, frankly, needed some kind of psychiatric help?

Or is it me?

Are these ‘sayings’ normal? Have I missed out on the English language unwittingly thinking my mother was nuts?

‘Has the cat got your tongue?’ was another favorite – usually after I had broken a window or set fire to the budgerigar or something. No mother, if the cat had got my tongue, there would be blood pouring out of my mouth and I would be screaming something unintelligible. Is the gin finished and you’re on the rum now or what?

Sometimes we would go and visit some relatives who lived near London. They were considered, by my mother, to be people to have respect for. I have no idea why, other than they were quite rich and their daughter, my second cousin I think, talked like the Queen. Something I found distinctly unnerving.

As we arrived my mother would grab me by the ear and say “Now watch your P’s and Q’s”.

The first time she ever said this, I wondered if these relatives were possibly world champion scrabble players or something.

‘Watch your P’s and Q’s’? What the bloody hell is the mad woman on about now. What am I supposed to do? Find a bit of paper, write a ‘P’ and a ‘Q’ on it and spend the entire visit staring at it?

I can imagine the reaction after we had left. “Nice little boy Neil isn’t he? Not all there though eh?”

On the other hand, they might have used an expression I am very fond of when describing somebody who I think is dumb.

‘Daft as a brush’. I use it all the time. It nonsensical. ‘Daft as a brush’?? Have you ever met a brush that is daft? No, of course not. They’re inanimate objects brushes. How can they be daft?

Oh eck. My mother did manage to influence me a little bit. She taught me how to talk gibberish.

Apparently, according to the internet, ‘daft as a brush’, meaning stupid, may have originated as ‘soft as a brush’, meaning soft in the head. The ‘soft as a brush’ being taken from the tail of a fox.

Anyway, I hope I’ve given you some ‘food for thought’ – precisely which food I have no idea – but, if not, never mind eh? ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink’ – or something like that.

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