Hi Ramnel
Sign The Pledge

Give up alcoholic drink.

To do with the Temperance movement

Kelly

My grandmother used to tell us that our bedroom was messy and we better...

"Red up that room"

before our mother got home.

Hi Rammel
Start The Ball Rolling

Set an activity in motion or get something started.

Used from about the 19th century

Kelly

790 - "Red up that room"
791 - Start The Ball Rolling


Sign The Pledge  (join the scouts, pay the cashier, shut the door, open a window)

Hi Rammel

Thanks

kelly

Hi Rammel
Method to my madness

Despite people thinking an idea has no chance of succeeding, there  actually is structure to it.

kelly

792 - Method to my madness

Thanks  Rammel

Good night

Kelly

793 - Ran into a stone wall.

My mother used to tell us...

If you don't get to bed pretty soon, you'll meet yourself getting up!

Anyone - everyone

Does this qualify?

If you don't get to bed pretty soon, you'll meet yourself getting up!

It made sense to my mother but I'll await a decision of the panel. 

No sure...  it seems   just a turn of phrase. But for me it is more of  a saying that
'Red up that room' for example which seems seems to be just a shortening of 'ready your room' and that is just normal talk; Make a long story short too seems literal enough.  IMO of course

a nice saying - not for the list of course:

Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking.
-Nicolas de Chamfort, writer

Red up or Redd up is a very old saying.  I think it actually came from the middle ages.  I did look it up one time but not recently.  I'm sure my grandmother got it from her mother and so forth, back a way in the family.  If I remember correctly, it meant in part, clean up this mess.

 

red up
to tidy, clean up; from Scots
"you coming out?"
"aye, but I have to red up in here first"

I looked it up now.  So it is an idiom


The verbal phrase “redd up” (also seen as “red up,” “ret up,” and even “rid up”) has its roots in a Middle English verb redden, which meant to rescue or free from, or to clear. Today, “redd up” means to clear an area or make it tidy.

It is a vocabulary term from what I understand.

Swing the Lead

Meaning to evade doing something , usually by giving a not very believable reason.

Originally I think it came from 20th military or armed forces slang.

Usually meaning someone 'swinging  the lead' was a malingerer.

Kelly

Thanks Bubble, that rings a bell and my grandmother was a MacMurray.  Lots of Scottish ancestors in her background.

Hi Rammel
The long and short of it

If you get a detailed report, you will get a brief statement, that will tell you the substance of the report.

Or the long and short of it!

Kelly

Go along on another person's shirt tails.  (Means not doing your share...a free ride)

Hi Rammel
Pleased as Punch

Very pleased


Comes from the old Punch and Judy shows on UK beaches for many, many years.

A saying still used today.

Kelly

Quote from: Kelly on April 13, 2016, 08:39:56 AM
Swing the Lead

Meaning to evade doing something , usually by giving a not very believable reason.
....................

Kelly

Is "Swing the Lead" one that you have heard or used?

Some of these sayings are not familiar to some of us due to the world being so big. I'm not trying to be difficult, but do want to stick close to the intent listed at the first post of the discussion.

794 - The truth will out.
795 - Go along on (riding) another person's shirt tails
796 - Pleased as Punch


#716 - The long and short of it

My mother used to describe a neighbor who didn't take care of her appearance as...

Looking like she hollered "hang on clothes if you want to go along"!

Hi Rammel
Swing the lead is a well known saying in the UK.

I have heard it used since I was in my mid teens and still do to this day.

It might be more a UK phrase.


Kelly

Hi Rammel
Bee in ones Bonnet

Said if you keep on about something.  So much that you find it hard to concentrate on anything else, except the idea you keep going on about.

Again a UK saying heard over the years.

Kelly

kelly, what does 'lead' refer to? the metal?

451 - There is a bee in your bonnet

Hi Bubble
It goes back to seafarers who used to test the depth of the water below the ships.  So a weighted line was lowered into the water.  The weight was lead

So lazy seafarers just waived the leads line in the air as they could not be bothered to test the the depth below the ship.

Therefore:
Swinging the lead.

Evading doing something.

Shirking doing a job

Lazy

Kevin

Kelly, having a "Bee in one's bonnet" isn't strictly UK.  I've heard it most of my life.  But the meaning might be a bit different.  I always thought it meant having something that needed telling and no one to listen.  My grandmother used to tell us, "Sit down and talk to me.  You look like you have bee in your bonnet."