Colloquialisms come in many forms; some are regional, some would only be understood due to shared experiences and some exist solely within the family group. My grandparents, who lived through the rationing of WWII, when making a sandwich, used to say " Make it bread and scrape." This meant putting butter, margarine or jam on the bread and then scraping off as much as you possibly could to make it go further. Another, peculiar to Glasgow I believe, is "Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!" Meaning something sufficiently interesting is happening in the street to entice you downstairs from your tenement block to see what's going on. Anyone else got some they'd like to share?
1/ My father would use "bread and scrape" as a criticism...as in "All you'll get off [those tightwads] is bread and scrape, not bread and butter." 2/ Not peculiar to Glasgow, northern England as well. One that we heard from our ex-Glaswegian neighbours was "going to get my messages" when going shopping. Never understood the etymology! One that should be local to Shropshire, but appears to have got some legs, and is heard elsewhere, is "going all around the Wrekin", meaning to go a very long way of doing whatever - and that can be anything, not just travelling; e.g. if your story is very long and rambling, you're going all around the Wrekin. The Wrekin is a local hill, and if you get to anywhere by going "all around the Wrekin", it's probably not the shortest way.
