I can't, I've got a bone in my leg

Posted by Gary Martin on November 16, 2006

In Reply to: I can't, I've got a bone in my leg posted by John Pocklington on November 16, 2006

: 70 years ago whenever I wanted to stir my grandfather into unwelcome activity he would say. "I can't, I've got a bone in my leg" which was strictly true and enough to satisfy a little boy. Using the same phrase to my own grandchildren, the family claim to have never heard of it. I'm sure this phrase is established in English phraseology. Can you confirm this?

It was certainly commonplace in the English Midlands in the 1950s. I can't recall hearing it since leaving school at the end of the 60s.

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