Sayings that you never understood or misinterpreted growing

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I guess this is common place for a lot of people here since a classic aspie trait is being very literal, though it wasn't as much of a problem for me growing up. I still had issues with a few phrases though, most notably this one:

"spare the rod and spoil the child""

I always thought it meant that it was better to spoil the child than to inflict pain upon them and thought it was an early saying protesting child abuse. How wrong I was. I just found out about this one a couple of years ago.


Anyone else confuse or misinterpret old sayings?

That's what I thought it meant....?

Raining cats and dogs makes a literal image in my mind. I always thought it must be like those stories people tell of frogs and fish falling from the sky. Silly, I know, but still.

In Polish we say about a plump person that they are "near the bone", which I always interpreted as this person being very thin - because the layer of flesh is very close to the bone then, it's near the bone.

So what does the spare the rod one mean?

It means you should beat your kid if they only deserve, because otherwise you will raise a spoiled child not being afraid of punishment.

In Polish we say also about a fat person that he or she is "fluffy", weird. It's persian cats that are fluffy and not obese folks.

oh. I never realized. geh.

"A stitch in time saves nine." Nine what???

In a side note, when I heard of the band The Ben Folds Five, I didn't realize that the guy's name was Ben Folds, so I always wondered what he was folding.

A stitch in time saves nine... that means if a stitch is taken as soon as a tear / hole in something is noticed, it will save you from having to take 9 more stitches to fix a bigger hole / tear.

Clean as a whistle. What if you have a dirty whistle?

Your sparing the rod and just using your hands to beat the child that is what it means.

I didn't understand what squeaky clean meant, as a child.

I actually thought a piggy bank was well...a piggy bank. I was an adult when I learned what it actually is.

I never understood what people mean by I'll fix your wagon.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

"Handsome is as handsome does."

Wtf does THAT mean?
I heard one of my eighth grade teachers say that, and I still cant decifer it.

She was a lady responding to girls in the class. So the male equivalent would be "beauty is as beauty does" I suppose. But it still doesnt make any sense.