Phrases you don't hear any more

This morning, the phrase "struck on himself" popped into my head. I realized that I hadn’t heard it in ages. It means someone who has an inflated opinion of himself or who is in love with himself. As in, "Earl was the best looking boy in the school, but I thought he was struck on himself."

The Learner’s Dictionary’s entry on "strike" says the phrase is British informal. I grew up hearing it all the time, though, in Catawba County, North Carolina. Being "struck on" yourself was a bad thing to be, too, in my family.

This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this post.