Idioms

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Actually, I didn't get the idea that ANYONE here needed them explained. Did I REALLY seem to be doing that? I was trying to give what I thought was a somewhat logical reason for them.

SOME are things like what Kajjie spoke of. "I couldN'T care less" makes sense and is probably how it started. Someone ELSE(not anyone here) obviously didn't understand that and started saying "I could care less".

THAT is why I didn't "explain" them all, etc... "As easy as pie", for example, is an idiom I know the meaning of but never really could make sense of, regarding the actual language.

So sorry if I implied that even ONE person here didn't understand it.

And was he NT, and American(I'm not sure if it is English, or just American). "Pie in the sky" or "pipe dream" refers to a very unrealistic hope. Don't ask me HOW they got that meaning.

BTW so there is NO misunderstanding, I simply mean that the tie between not understanding idioms and AS seems an ODD observation. And people here DO seem to usually understand. I'm sure that NTs have as much trouble with new ones.

I have seen more than one comedy act and/or cartoon that just played off of the stupidity or literal meaning of some of them.

Throw the baby out with the bath water makes sense, for example. After all, you give a baby a bath because you want to clean the baby. You cherish the baby in some way. But you HAVE to get rid of the old water, so you throw it out. So the phrase means throw the good out with the bad. But you can imagine how the literal meaning could be funny.

I'm fine with most idioms and phrases, but one that's irked me for a while and a point which game reviewer Yahtzee made is the following:

"You can't have your cake and eat it too."

Why not? If you have a cake, surely one of the few things you can do with it is eat it? What kind of a sick person would give you a cake but not allow you to eat it? Isn't the point of having a cake to eat it? As Yahtzee pointed out, the reverse is much better. You can't eat a cake and have it too, because you've eaten it. Then it all makes sense because it is a metaphor for expending resources and then still expecting to have them.

1. Flying by the seat of your pants. This one is a complete mystery to me. How would anyone do this? A pair of pants does not provide sufficient combustible fuel to cause a person to fly. What if I am not wearing pants in the first place?

2. She's hot (or he's hot). How do you know? She does not appear to be exerting herself any more than anyone else. She's not sweating. Should we see if we can lower the temperature in the room?

LG

Pie in the Sky means some one thinks there is going to be the best outcome to a situation, but they are delusional because it is as likely as 'pie in the sky'. (From "there'll be Pie in the Sky when we Die")

I had the hardest time with "He who laughs last, laughs best" because I didn't hear it correctly and always thought it was "he who laughs last, laughs last" which I thought was pretty weird.

Merle

no

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a rather confusing one. As it is not always true.

My mother used to say, "You'd cut off your nose to spite your face." I NEVER understood that!

I guess she meant that I was hateful (since I didn't happen to see things the way she did at the time.)

Some idioms here are still complicated for me to understand despite they have been explained. I guess I need them to be used in examples for me to understand them.

I've had to learn to be familiar with the mental imagery of most English idioms;
that means (fortunately for me) that I can understand them with zero to
minimal explanation.

now, I was told that by my mother, my father told me it meant I would be stubborn to get my way even if it were against my best interest (i.e. cut off my own nose if I wanted to get back (spite) at my face, even though it was me that it hurt.)

I finally 'got' it one day when my brother and I were waiting for the school bus and I was cold and standing in the shadow of the building, he told me to come out into the sun but I was in a mood and wouldn't move because I didn't want him to think he could be nice to me sometimes and so mean to me others. I was doing it to "hurt" HIM, but I was the one that was still cold.


Like "shooting yourself in the foot" only on purpose.

Merle

Thanks Merle.. though I still don't see how I was doing that in the instances she would yell that. It did nothing but confuse me. I just kept thinking it was her way of telling me how hateful and ungrateful I was.. one of her many ways of conveying that.. whenever I did not agree with her.

one thing to remember. Just because someone understands or even just uses the idiom, doesn't mean they are necessarily using it because it fits. Sometimes people feel hurt that their child is not the one they wanted but the one they have. They take this out on the child, fair or unfair is beside the point at this juncture. Their lesser nature will come out to confuse, to attack, to find a way to hurt back.

I have nearly perfect pitch. As a baby, I would cry and scream at tones that were off pitch. Even when I was pre-verbal I would cry whem my mother sang to my brother and I "momma don't siiiinnng" because momma couldn't carry a tune in bucket (another idiom meaning she had no singing voice at all) This hurt mom, even if I was a little bitty baby, she could understand I didn't understand this might hurt her, but it did, and she would put brandy in my formula so I would sleep through the bonding between her and my brother while they sang and sang. Mom always resented me for that, I suppose she just couldn't help it.

we 'rub people the wrong way' mostly because we don't know which way the rub goes. That is why I have my name of 'sinsboldly', because I boldly go where angels fear to tread, and don't even know I am sinning.

Merle

Pardon my french-- there's a mild explitive or exclamation in french, "sacre mere", which means "holy mother", and is a reference to mary. sort of like saying "jesus christ" in english. But if you said it slightly wrong it would be "sacre merde", that is, "holy sh--". which isn't proper french. I think this is where this expression comes from.

"Pie in the sky" is part of the longer expression, "Pie in the sky and sh-- in your face", meaning the promise of a good life in heaven as a reward for a bad life on earth, particularly when such a promise is used to keep poor people from becoming restless.

Idioms have always fascinated me because they were so bizzare. words in general, in fact. When I was a teenager I read all 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, which explains what all these words mean and how they came to be.

I like the idioms "a hit", like for something that was really popular like a song or whatever (since we all love being hit, right?)

"I couldn't care less" really frustrates me, since it also appears to say the opposite of what it means.

Around here, people say "do what" when they mean "what did you say". It makes me angry.

"the other day" seems pretty silly too, since there was more than one "other day".

I also have never quite figured out what people mean, speaking about time, when they say, for example "Half six". That should mean three o'clock, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. It either means 5:30 or 6:30, but I don't know which.

Normal people are such freaks.

Eh. Say, imply. Same dif' on teh internetz

Well, Merle and I have an understanding, so all is fine. I was simply explaining how they were logical. I didn't mean to imply that ANYONE needed them explained. Besides, what could I do that the vastness of the internet could not, in that regard?

And if I seem to over explain things, or explain things that are obvious, just realize that it is the way I am. I don't think I am better than everyone, I don't think I know everything. I am not trying to insult anyone, etc.... Seriously, I would hope that most of my posts would bear that out. HEY, I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier, because I have a book of danish slang at home! Some of THAT actually makes sense. Naw, I get in enough hot water just over english.

I WILL say one thing though....

English..... The third times the charm(a reference to the fact that the third try is usually correct.....)
German.... All Good things are(come in?) three(s?)

So can anyone explain to me how the german variant of Aller guten Dinge sind drei.(sp?) came to be, etc????