"Eeeew, too much information!" my friend remarked, when I mentioned that I'd had 'a lick and a promise' this morning.
I only meant
that, as my bathroom's out of action at the moment due to being refitted, I
just had a quick wash at the sink instead of my usual shower. How times
change. Not just the daily shower instead of the weekly bath, but the
expressions we use. That particular phrase was a favourite of my
Grandmother's, but in her case it did often refer to an actual lick, as in,
"spit in your hanky and let me rub that dirt off your face".
My
Grandmother used a lot of strange expressions, now I come to think about
it. "He's as queer as Dick's hatband," she'd say, meaning that
someone was what I'd call mildly eccentric. {In the days when that's what the 'Q' word actually meant.} I
never found out who Dick was, or what his hat looked like, but as she wore some
pretty strange hats herself I longed to see it.
An expression that mystified me completely, though, was the
condemnation, "fur coat; no knickers".
How on earth
did she know? It's not like a fur coat is a flimsy garment, given to
revealing all in a light breeze, or getting caught unexpectedly on passing
gentlemen. And if you were wearing a fur coat, it was likely to be in
order to keep warm in winter. Surely you'd want substantial layers of clothing
on underneath as well? Perhaps she meant that a fur coat was so expensive
that the poor lady couldn't afford knickers too. But she had a fur coat
herself! And many knickers, with long legs, that fluttered merrily on the
clothes line every washday. A variation
on that theme was, "red hat; no knickers". Did my Grandmother have x-ray vision? Was the whole thing just coded messages to Granddad?
I will never know. I can only wonder what she would have said about
someone in a fur coat and a red hat.
