[Bob's your uncle] -- give me more Brit-only expressions!

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[Bob's your uncle] -- give me more Brit-only expressions!


From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

it'll be all right on the night ------- (British English informal)

used to say that something will be successful, even though there have been lots of problems

example(?) ---------- Workmen have yet to finish the new complex, but the organisers are confident it will be all ...............



>>> Today, young people don't say "Bob's your uncle" any longer. It's an old idiom now. (2006)

Old, perhaps, but not dead. And not that old. I've heard it from thirtysomething or early fortysomething speakers in England, as a matter of course.

This would have been late 90s; your call whether that's old. I've also seen it on late 90s early 00s BBC TV.

Mind, this is BBC America, aimed at a somewhat older demographic. I've also heard it on American children's shows as a faux-britishism, completely misused, e.g., "As sure as Bob's you're uncle". Heh?

One of the BBC America shows (maybe Dalziel and Pascoe?) used it somewhat ironically, as "... and Robert is your mother's brother" or some such.

"Old" idioms can persist longer than people think, either because they pass into the mainstream (e.g., American cool, jazz, rock and roll) or because people like to bring them back for an ironic "retro" effect (e.g., gee whiz sounds very dated to American ears — think Leave it to Beaver, but people still say it for fun)