When examined, or just because it’s weird on its own.
Example: Beat a dead horse
- You whip a horse to go faster
- It dies from being whipped too much
- You still want the horse to go faster
- You continue to whip it
Break a leg
How does telling someone to sustain serious injuries imply you want them to succeed?
My understanding is that that was the original intention of the phrase. It’s meant to be ironic but then the irony was lost as the phrase got more popular
Hoisted by my own petard (to be foiled by your own plan), is a nice flowery one, although it actually makes sense. The bee’s knees (for something excellent) is a good one that makes no sense. Wet behind the ears (inexperienced) is another cool one.
“The dogs bollocks” is another, same as bees knees.
“Hoisted by your own petard” is from Hamlet. Equivalent to “It blew up in your own face” but with more of a cause of hippocracy
Is ‘Wet behind the ears’ a comparison to a newborn baby?
It is indeed
“scientists say…”
They aren’t some unified entity. They don’t even agree amongst themselves on most things if one digs deep enough. While there is some interpretation of the data involved, most people that use the phrase “Scientists say…” are essentially saying “Objective observations done by several of the smartest humans have been argued over by several of their rivals resulting in…”
Like, we should start calling them something like Observational Data Warriors ™ /s to put perspective on the magnitude of information and depth involved. You can have an opinion but you are a coward of no relevant value if you are not trained for battle and fighting on the front lines. So whatever nonsense you have to say results in you looking like a clown of no note.
Scientists say "im off to work dear, see you this afternoon”.
but seriously, we have to trust experts in STEM just to get through our day. Every time someone give the "scientists can be wrong too” line i look up at the ceiling as if its about to collapse. Sure science is about continuous improvement and falsifiability but that guys PHD is not equivalent to your youtube recomendations pipeline.
Whats up
How’s it hangin’?
Catch you on the flip side.
Stay fresh cheese bags
Head over heels.
So… Standing?
I’ve read that it used to be “heels over head” as in upside-down, but then somehow the words got switched around (I found this page that claims the same thing: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/head-over-heels.html ).
No I think it refers to the motion of the head going over the heels. Not being positioned in a static frame over the heels.
“it’ll be a bloodbath in there!” *used for anything political wise.
Whenever my dad is being lazy or doing something too slowly, my mom says he’s “dicking the dog”. Whatever that means.
🤨
In Northern Ireland (Belfast especially), we sometimes say “bout ye?” as a greeting. It’s just “what about you?” but actually meaning “how are you?”
Often it’s just used as an alternative to “hello” or “hi”, and you’re not actually asking the person how they are.
*North of Ireland
“Reet” in Yorkshire.
“You get what you pay for” - the words of a simpleton (or lying salesperson).
Yeah definitely useful when managing expectations around buying cheap shit but quality generally peaks or plateaus in the middle of the cost range.
I had to explain that “you get what you pay for” to a disgruntled (and later banned from my store) customer years ago.
At the time I was selling eyewear for Red Eyewear Giant (now owned by Blue Eye-care Giant™) and a guy orders the absolute cheapest product for his quite strong prescription. The RX was roughly a -7 on each eye, not huge but definitely significantly thicker than average. The gentleman wanted LARGE eyewear. The man did not want to spend much.
I offered a quote for the ideal product for his vision, which is a 1.7 index lens with scratch resistant non-glare and a hydrophobic coating (well get to why thats important). The man declines and decides he wants the absolute bare minimum, cool, cr-39 plastic lenses, uncoated. No amount of education on the products would change his mind, I chalked it up to a budget thing, explained the downsides of his choice (to absolve myself of liability for the issues I knew he’d have) and allowed the oirchase to go through with confirmation he understood the issues.
Now, what we’ve just done here is gone from a very lightweight, low thermal mass product that repels water, to a HEAVY, High mass product with absolutely no water repellant properties. This is in Houston, TX - a literal swamp, and the Air conditioning capital of the US.
Man enters grocery store, man buys groceries, man leaves grocery store, man’s glasses immediately are coated in a thick fog which is dense enough that evaporation does not occur quickly (or at all honestly with that humidity) and they need to be wiped up.
That man screamed at me about how I ripped him off for over an hour.
Now, I’m not telling this story to say you’re wrong, I think this might be an “exception that proves the rule” situation. But yes, you get what you pay for, and no, it’s not always said by scummy salespeople, sometimes we just want you to have the right product the first time.
We all have experience with buying a premium product and thinking “wow, that’s nice” just like we’ve all had the experience where we bought the cheapest option and though “this is pretty good”.
The rule is as follows: “it depends”.
It’s just that our monkey brains don’t like those kinds of generalization.
My wife has worked with lots of people who are not native English speakers who are sometimes taken aback by the idioms. One colleague flat out refused to accept that “FOMO” is a word.
I suggested that she is in a position to make some up, like “Let’s not put fish in the milk bucket.” But she didn’t go for it. I guess she’s not an agent of chaos after all :/
You’ve got to mold that silicone or you’ll never be fulfilled.
“Let’s not put fish in the milk bucket.”
Honestly better than many other common sayings.
Mind your ps and qs. What are ps and qs?
I’ve heard that it means pints and quarts, referring to beers. I feel like I’ve also heard it was a typesetter thing.
The Wikipedia entry on that one is a fun read. I’ve heard most of these possible origins before, but nobody is actually sure of the true origin of the phrase. It’s kind of frustrating, but also pretty neat that we still use a phrase long after we forgot where it came from.
The typesetter one makes so much sense, since handling mirror images of letter you will definitely get your p and q mixed up.
I know there are lots of possible origins for this phrase, but I think of it as “pleases” and “thank yous”. The “k” sound from “thank” followed by the word “you” combine to sound like the letter q.
“Quitting cold turkey” - I never actually thought about this one, but apparently it’s directly related to addiction (which seems kind of obvious now that I do think about it). When you quit an addiction abruptly, you sometimes get that cold goosebump skin like a cold turkey.
Goosebumps like from a goose? Why isn’t it called ‘going cold goose’ then?
Keep fucking that chicken.
I’ve never heard that one before. But now I’m going to use it.
“It’s raining cats and dogs.”
Somehow, heavy rain is represented by a downpour of household animals.
The household animals are not pouring down. This saying describes rainfall that is so powerful that it washes away the dead cats and dogs lying in the gutter in medieval cities.
Interesting. I always thought it was because the rain was so heavy it drove all the strays to seek shelter, so people noticed a lot more cats and dogs in front of their homes. I think a grade school teacher told me that when I was a kid. I like the dead animal version better.
This one is because when houses had straw roofs, cats and dogs would sit up there, and come down in the rain.
It’s previously rained frogs or fish from clouds, at certain times throughout history.
So, cats and dogs is an even more intense version of that maybe.
“By and large” is a weird one. It’s meaning is along the same lines as “all other things being equal.” Is it a reference to large sample sizes?
It’s made weirder by the fictional corporation name in Wall-E, “Buy 'n Large”
