Are My Favorite Old Sayings Becoming Extinct?

Do you find yourself throwing out old phrases very often?  I'm a big fan of those phrases around my house, but there's only one problem: my kids have no idea what the heck I'm talking about when I use them.  Of course I explain what they mean, but my kids have already tuned out by then.

Last night, I whipped out an oldie but goody. I was mentioning to my husband that I needed to get back to some abdominal and knee strengthening exercises as I had "fallen off the wagon" on those.  My daughter immediately chimed in with "Mom, you fell off a wagon?!  Are you ok?"  After I stopped laughing and began to explain that one, she was off and running after about five seconds worth of explanation. It makes me wonder if the old phrases are dying a slow death to be replaced by "Bam! No you dit'nt" and similar popular kid phrases.  Let's hope not!

If you want to find out what the 25 most common sayings are, along with where they came from, then click here.  Below are some of my favorite phrases that I find myself unconsciously pulling out in casual conversation:

"No sense crying over spilled milk"
"That's the bees knees!"
"Bite the bullet"
"Blood is thicker than water"
"Are you buttering me up?"
"Cat got your tongue?"
"Break the ice"
"Caught red-handed"
"Give the cold shoulder"
"Quit cold turkey"
"Go the whole 9 yards"
"More than you can shake a stick at" (I find myself using this most often)
"Rule of thumb"
"Sleep tight"
"Spill the beans"

You had better believe I'm not giving up on preserving old phrases and will continue to toss them out randomly in conversations.  They are too much fun to give up on and are certainly better than the snarky sayings of today's youth.