I haven’t actually heard it much, but I’ve read it for years and years.
I heard the phrase from my dad; his parents were raised in New England (Maine and Massachusetts).
Oh god yes. I grew up with it. It was one of the standard lines from both my parents and my aunts/uncles.
I still use it occasionally, especially if I stumble over something at work. My husband’s family still occasionally uses it but more with those who are in the ahem older age group. If we said it to our younger family members they’d probably give us the “OK Boomer” stare.
It’s pretty common in the UK. I assumed it originated here. Google Ngrams seems to have “Arse over tit” (which would definitely be commonwealth usage) and “Ass over teakettle” starting about the same time - 1940 ish, so it’s difficult to tell. (There are no results for “ass over tit”)
“Arse over tip” appears to predate the above by 20 years or so. That surprised me
Edited: and here’s a result from 1893: The English dialect dictionary - Joseph Wright - Google Books
This.
I don’t think it’s a regionalism as much as a generation-ism. My parents were born in the 30s in Chicago & they used it a lot when I was growing up in 60s. I still use it today for a pratfall, a roll-over car crash, things like that. Any unplanned / undesired tumbling motion.
And yes, I’d expect very few Americans much under age 30 would use it. Although they may well recognize it.
In “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” Eric Bogle wrote “arse over head”.
Heard it many times from my parents.
I don’t recall ever having heard it in person, but I’ve heard it on TV and read it in stories.
Heard it a few times growing up in NE Ohio in the Seventies.
Yep I use it.
In New Brunswick, it’s “Arse over teakettle”
Husband’s heard it, mostly from older relatives, in eastern PA.
I’ve heard it, also from older relatives, southwest OH.
It’s been familiar to me for years, but I cannot tell you when I first heard it. But something very close to it appears in the book I’m reading now, Sunset Express, by Robert Crais, published in 1996. The sentence reads thus:
“Tomsic was praying that she wouldn’t lose her balance and break her damned neck – one slip and she’d flop ass over teapot another sixty or eighty yards down the slop.”
I most frequently hear “tits over teakettle” said by many. Ass/arse is significantly less frequent, but not rare.
I second the sentiment that “head over heels” is used only in the context of love, if someone were to say “I tripped and fell head over heels down the stairs!” It would seem strange. Perhaps not from an elderly lady?
Ontario, Canada for information’s sake.
I have not heard that usage; the one I am familiar with is “don’t know your ass from your elbow”. About which there was an interesting anecdote in a book called The Size if the World: the author was using a, shall we say, rustic facility to relieve himself, which involved positioning himself over a hole in the floor and realized that he was placed incorrectly because he was trying to align the hole with his elbows, and thus concluded that that might have had some connection with the origin of the phrase.
I’ve heard of “asses and elbows.”
My dad used to say ass over teakettle.
My mother used to say teakettle over donkey.
Both of my parents were from western Montana.
As have I, but usually in the context of expecting to see all-out effort and busy-ness, not as a result of a fall.
Yep. I’ve heard it all my life (I’m 58). I grew up in the panhandle of Oklahoma in a tiny tiny town.