God rest you merry - an old greeting now only remembered and mispunctuated in the carol 'God rest you merry, gentlemen'.

I don't know if it ought to be revived, but for awhile the Canadian government was running a campaign to make "chimo" the official Canadian greeting. It's a word in one of the Inuit languages for "hello". It never caught on, but my family does own a chimo mug that was acquired during the campaign.

One expression I'm glad to see less of is "my peeps" for "my people" or "my friends". That one drove me right up the wall whenever I heard it!

Gadzooks! and Poppycock! so much more satisfying to exclaim than a random "curse word"

In Cornwall when someone is in trouble we say:
Aw Poor Soul too!
I still do say it sometimes.

My mam says "poor soul" where I would be more likely to say "poor thing". She also says "oh rescue the perishing" when the weather is very bad.

Gadzooks!

Fair Dinkum, dead set, strewth
I live in a really coutry area where Australian slang is still alive but it is diminshing.

Let me see. Here's the one grandmother used to say, 'My Great Caeser's Ghost!'

I have an odd family, so some words exist within our little unit that are distinctive.

Balderdash, Sink me, cream-faced loon, lay on, phantasmagoria, popinjay...the list goes on.
And the dialect words from lowland Scots and Yorkshire
Then there's the random quoting from everything from Shakespeare and Chaucer to Monty Python and Discworld.
And the wordsmithing, where we make up words.
One of them is 'Jabberwocking' to describe babbling on about a subject.
However, in the company of others we tend to stick to standard English.

"I'll go to the foot of our stairs!"
My father in law

I know it's not currently void, but I do rarely hear people say "botheration"
(Actually I haven't heard anyone except me say it; and the character of Charley, in the Dr Who audio adventures.)

I'd love to see more people use "botheration" than the various profanity which is most used at the moment.

Strewth, Copago! At least you get to hear it at the back of Bourke. It seems that the Aussie slang we grew up with is disappearing very quickly, especially in the cities. For ages we were concerned about the influence of US culture (movies and TV in particular) threatening the local vernacular, but I reckon texting and its various clones is a much bigger problem.

e.g. when was the last time you cacked yourself rather than 'lol'ed, or split your sides rather than 'rofl'ed?

Anyway enough of a nostalgic rant.

My phrase to reintroduce is 'bonza, mate' or 'grouse, mate'. translation: fantastic, great. Although 'strewth' comes a very close second!

I still say "Strewth!" or "Strewth Ruth!" I want to keep the Aussie vernacular alive and it also lets me vocalise frustration in situations when stronger language would be inappropriate e.g. when at work or when there are kids around. You don't hear many people saying "beaut" these days. Something might be a beauty as in "What a beauty!" but not many say "That's beaut!"

My mother used to say, in response to anything her children said but which she didn't quite believe, "and the squire's son was found dead in the ditch with his boots on" - which naturally disproved everything. If that expression made a comeback I might find out what it meant!

I still hear 'Crikey Moses' from time to time, I first heard it at 6th form college from one of the boys (ex public school from what I remember, although I never remember hearing it myself as I was there as well), I thought it was quite amusing the first time and glad it's still going. I doubt Blimey O'Reilly is going anywhere in a hurry, my friend's father used to say it and still fairly common in the less public school (and my own) circles.

Hah! I say Blimey O'Reilly all the time!
I wonder what the origin of that is. Definitions went round when I was at school that "Bloody" was "By Our Lady", "Blimey" was "Blind me" and "Crikey" was "Christ Almighty."

I never thought of crikey, but had to be Christ something if I had, but my books have bloody in its literal meaning. If anyone wants more add them here as I have a library of word origins here.

I worked with someone who frequently exclaimed "gadzooks," which I always found quaint. My father's favourite 1940s-era term for anything he thought was wonderful was "That's real jazzy."

"Moreish"

I had an Aunt who used this word, normally when referring to tasty food. I never hear it now, but I think it's a lovely word.

And snazzy, too!

Have you read "The Etymologicon" David? A really good , and funny read about (obviously) the origins of odd words, by Mark Forsyth, who has a website called The Inky Fool.

My dad called me 'Tootsie', but it's probably a bit? sexist, now.

Gadzooks. I've never heard anyone I know say that in real life, but I certainly remember it from the martian (the great gazoo) on the Flintstones lol

Postcards2go: well maybe "now" (although it's not really that "bad" lol). There was (maybe still is) a shoe brand called "Tender tootsies" and because I always got blisters from all shoes except those about 20 years ago, the hubby called me "tt" for awhile. I know that sounds odd as well, but I think I kinda know where you're coming from (as in, it was originally intended to be a "cute"/affectionate sort of thing) : )

My Grandmother says “dunnerwetter” (it varies how often a week), and she doesn’t even know what it means. I’ve only heard her say it, and I’m sure growing up she heard it a lot. I looked it up the one day and thought, “you’re not using it right.” Her father, or someone like that, must have used it more like a curse word.

That sounds like her version of German Donnerwetter, which was heavily overused in films made in the 1950s and 1960s (and possibly even later) on World War II. It's a somewhat archaic, fairly mild expletive somewhere on the a scale ranging (in English from Ghosh and Golly to Cripes and to the but archaic Damn and blast it all.

The plain, literal meaning is archaic in German for thunderstorm, which in modern German is das Gewitter (pl. -).

There's a very useful word used by a lot of Indigenous Australians.. "unna"

Depending on how you say it, it can mean..
"is that true"
"no, that can't be right"
"yes, I agree with you"
"do you agree with me"
"are you sure"

and various other phrases.

My mother always describes something that’s comfortable as “the cat’s pajamas.” She’s the only one I know who says it (then again, I probably don’t get out as much as I should).

I'd rather have some cat's pajama's than have a monkey's uncle.

How about "Crimeny!" as a substitiute for all those overused profanities?

The Mental Floss website recently offered "off the cob" as a sub for "corny".

And I'm reminded of two expressions my parents used. My still-living mother still uses "As many (whatever) as Carter has Little Liver Pills" (referrring to the old-time remedy; I think it might still be on the market) and my late father used "Let's Went!", Pancho's catchphrase from the "Cisco Kid" TV show from the 50s.

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My mother-in-law used to say botheration, or more likely oh dash it.