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
I’ve never heard that one before. But now I’m going to use it.
“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.
You can lead a whore to water, but you can’t make her douche.
I know that one as “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”.
Yap, still guessing
Whenever my dad is being lazy or doing something too slowly, my mom says he’s “dicking the dog”. Whatever that means.
🤨
“it’ll be a bloodbath in there!” *used for anything political wise.
“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.
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
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
Is ‘Wet behind the ears’ a comparison to a newborn baby?
It is indeed
Whats up
How’s it hangin’?
Catch you on the flip side.
Stay fresh cheese bags
“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.
“Run like you’ve never ran before” suggests that you’d probably suck at running.
As happy as Larry.
Now… who is Larry, why is he happy, how happy, like a little bit or ecstatic?
Be like Larry.
“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”.
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 typesetter one makes so much sense, since handling mirror images of letter you will definitely get your p and q mixed up.
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.
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.
It’s not a common saying here and I assumed it meant to pay attention to detail, be meticulous and precise, like “dot the i’s and cross the t’s”. ‘p’ and ‘q’ can be written similarly.
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.
“Reet” in Yorkshire.
*North of Ireland
Dollars to donuts.
WTF does it even mean?
Well, back in the day, a doughnut cost a lot less than a donut.
So, betting dollars against donuts would be a bad idea.
Not that it was ever a betting term, it just condone contains a reference to betting.
It’s like saying “hey, lets get dinner. You give me a twig for every dollar I put in.”
You’re either exchanging something of unequal value, or making an “investment” where you get very little return on it.
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.
