An article the other day contained the phrase “there’ll be tears before bedtime”. I wondered where the saying originated, but didn’t have much joy tracking down a source online. Still, it did spark an idea for a day-long scene:
“There’ll be tears before your morning shower…”
“There’ll be tears before breakfast…”
“There’ll be tears before lunch…”
“There’ll be tears before afternoon tea…”
“There’ll be tears before dinner…”
“There’ll be tears before bedtime…”
That would be one very sore, very chastened young lady. I like the idea…!
And it’s made me think more about the original phrase. These days, it foretells an argument and the ensuing emotions. I guess more traditionally it may well have referred to misbehaving girls getting a hard bedtime spanking from their father and/or mother – the sort of punishment which, I suspect might have featured a hairbrush or slipper. But it’s seen as such an innocuous phrase in real life that one can readily use it – so here’s the challenge: find an opportunity to weave it into a vanilla conversation at some suitable juncture in the next couple of days, and report back when you have done so!
Hmm, I like this. But I have no idea how to translate it to Dutch!
Lol…hadn’t heard it in a very long time
Actually context I associate it with is that it predicts not so much a fall from grace as a descent from an unsustainable level of happiness.
Relatively easy to use in that sense then !
Not that haven’t heard it in “young lady if you persist …there will tears before bedtime” but more as a warning than a promise 😉 I think I mean threat