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
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
- You have a cat.
- You wish to remove its skin.
- You realize there’s more than just one method to accomplish this unusual task.
- You state this proudly as a metaphor for problem-solving flexibility.
Related: a small room that “doesn’t have enough room to swing a cat”.
Does the pope shit in the woods?
A humerous combo of ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’ and ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ Which are two jokey ways of saying ‘Yeah, obviously, duh’.
My wife used to work in the backcountry. Lots of unpaved remote roads. Bears apparently do not shit in the woods. They shit on the road.
But does the pope shit in the woods?
No, but bears are catholic
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.
Is ‘Wet behind the ears’ a comparison to a newborn baby?
It is indeed
“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
The french used to use an explosive device called a “petard” (old french for a fart), that was used to breach doors. However these would sometimes blow back and kill the user rather than breach the door. This was the original intention for the Shakespearian phrase. One was Hoisted (old verb* not used anymore but essentially blown off their feet) by their own Petard (or door breaching bomb).
More information is here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard
*Unrelated to hoist as in to lift, despite similarities
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 ).
“You get what you pay for” - the words of a simpleton (or lying salesperson).
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.
Whenever my dad is being lazy or doing something too slowly, my mom says he’s “dicking the dog”. Whatever that means.
“Break a leg” (or “Hals und Beinbruch” in German, which is “Neck and leg fracture”).
I don’t even know what the logic could be. Is it supposed to be some sort of reverse psychology?
This is a theatre term as “Good luck” is supposed to bring bad luck. Therefore, you wish someone the worst luck possible in order to bring them good luck.
Whats up
How’s it hangin’?
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.
Dollars to donuts.
WTF does it even mean?
I’m so sure that this thing will happen, that I’m willing to make a bet whereby I’ll pay you dollars if it doesn’t happen, and you pay me donuts if it does. I feel like I’m getting free donuts and my dollars are not at risk.
“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”
Taking God’s name in vain
- You invoke God on some topic you’re wrong about.
- God appears and sees your worthless comment.
- ???
- God punishes you, or he backs away, or he learns to not listen to you anymore in boy cries wolf type situation? Its really not clear what the repercussions are.
I thought it was stating that something is God’s will for your own purposes. AFAIK it’s not just using terms for God as a curse.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/vain
The expression comes from the phrase “in vain” which restores the original meaning of the noun vain away from the conceited meaning and more towards the vacuous sense. So if you’re taking God’s name in vain, it’s using God’s name needlessly.
I think the idea was that he could be invoked by his name, but they couldn’t have people going around saying “Jehova” (or whatever) randomly without any cool powers happening, so they made up the rule to discourage people poking holes in their flimsy story.
No, no, it was originally “Taking God’s name in vein,” as saying the name of God out loud would allow Him into your blood. If you say the name of God, you allow him to inhabit your blood, gain your power, and become even more mighty. The ancient Hebrews feared God gaining too much power, as He would be able to destroy the world. Then Christians figured out that if they took Communion and instead drank the blood of Christ, they could reverse the Hebrew God’s power and slowly increase their own until they could ascend to the heavens and do battle with the Almighty, empowered by His blood in their veins, rather than weakened by taking His name in vein. In this seventeen-part essay, I will describe how we can defeat God by
This lore makes more sense than the bible.
This is mind blowing if true. Is this real? What’s going on here? Are you serious?
Not real, but certainly creative.
That’s one that always bothered me too. When I say “Jesus fucking Christ” I mean it. Which is it’s own weird ism when you think about it…
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 :/
“Let’s not put fish in the milk bucket.”
Honestly better than many other common sayings.
“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.