Sayings that you never understood or misinterpreted growing

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"a taste of your own medicine"

Just why would you be tasting someone else's medicine?

"You can have your cake & eat it to too" What's the point in having the cake if your not going to eat it
"You made your bed now lie in it" Why would you want to lie in an unmade bed

"You've made your bed, now lie in it" is another one that has confused me. If the bed has been made, you can't lay in it unless you un-make it first. Whenever I hear it, I think of someone trying to get back into it without pulling any of the blankets down so it can stay made while they lay in it.

Polish version of "You made your bed now lie in it" makes more sense for me: "Jak sobie pościelisz tak się wyśpisz" (How you make your bed[=put your beddings], so rested you will be when you wake up).
It might be difficult to sleep in a uncomfortable bed with messy beddings and you would wake up all tired and hurting, right? And even when one actually likes sleeping in messy bed it still makes sense: you always make your bed the way YOU are comfortable so it can be messy if it's comfortable, who cares? And if you make the bed in a way you don't find comfortable you are the one at fault, unless it is something you can't help.

The way I see it, "You made your bed, now lie in it," means you set in motion the events that led to your trouble, and now you must pay the consequences."

Add an "if" to it and you get the Polish meaning ("if you set in motion the events that led to your trouble, you must pay the consequences." because "if you made the bed badly, you won't be well rested next morning"). Noone uses that saying when anything good comes, I am probably the only one seeing the possible positive explanation bacause I care enough to interpret the sayings and wonder where it comes from and what sense it makes, not just remember the meaning.

BTW. We have a similar one "Nawarzyłeś piwa więc teraz je wypij"(You made a lot of beer, so drink it now), meaning the same thing: your actions have (bad) consequences so now you have to deal with them. (My understanding - I don't make or drink beer but when I was practicing cooking I often cooked too much stuff noone wanted to eat so I had to eat it in order not to waste food - it's just like this. I could always throw it out though if it was really bad, so who cares? Also - probably someone liking beer would be happy drinking all the beer but I guess there is an amount of beer noone is able to drink before it goes bad even if they love it.)

I realize this was posted four years ago, and that this person is doesnt even post on WP anymore, but that is NOT what the saying means.

"Spare the rod, and spoil the child" means that you DO beat your kid with a rod so they dont become spoiled, as opposed not beating your kid at all (which will supposedly cause the kid to become spoiled). NOT what you're saying-which is that "you should beat your kid only a certain amount, but not too much".

I think of it as "you' being a pharmacist, or a doctor dispensing medicine.

A lot of medicine tastes bad, so if you do something to a person to show how it feels when they were doing the same thing to you, it's like getting a taste of their own medicine.

Maybe a long time ago a patient refused to take their medicine because it tasted awful, and the doctor or nurse said "Come on, it can't be that bad!" and then the patient said "Then let's see how YOU like it!" as they forced a spoonful into their mouth. The medicine giver then muttered "Mm yummy...", with castor oil or whatever dribbling from their mouth, and the patient shouted "LIAR!!" And that's where the saying came from.

like this? i SO need this fabric though

I like that! If that were a fabric pattern, it would make a really cute pair of pajamas!

My mom used to tell me that oatmeal "sticks to your ribs". It means "makes you full" but I took it literally and pictured oatmeal dripping down my rib cage.

Today on Mother's Day I asked my parents about that saying "a taste of your own medicine". Mom looked it up on her phone, and said it comes from an Aesop fable where a man, who was a swindler, was selling fake medicine to people claiming it would cure anything. Then the man became ill himself, and people tried to cure him by giving him the same medicine, which he knew would not work.

I've read quite a few Aesop fables but I don't think I've even heard of that one before. Seems the ones with talking animals are the most well-known.

Interesting. That makes sense.
And you're right. Most of the Aesop's fables are populated by animal characters.

We get other sayings from Aesop like "he had a sour grapes attitude".

"Break a leg" Breaking bones is bad luck NOT good luck

^I read somewhere that back when everyone was really superstitious, it occurred to them that whenever you wish someone good luck when they were about to perform in a theatrical play, the opposite seemed to always happen. So maybe if you wished them *bad* luck instead, nothing bad would happen and the play would be a success.

I'm not really superstitious, but I can't help thinking there's some truth in that. So if we try to be as pessimistic as possible, then our *whole lives* will be good and successful!

Yes, I *am* not normal.