Confusing and Annoying Idioms....

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MrXxx
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13 Dec 2012, 3:42 pm

LizNY wrote:

I'm gonna guess the I COULD CARE LESS is a sarcastic take on the original. And the pot and kettle black....that one stumped me for years and it was explained to me as having to do w coffee. Idk. It still seems ridiculous to me.

"I could care less" is actually wrong. It's a screw up of, "I couldn't care less." (I already care so little it's not possible to care any less.)

The pot and kettle comes from the pioneer days, when most people had cast ironware, which were all black. If someone says "Your the pot calling the kettle black" they're telling you you're a hypocrite accusing some one else of possessing a trait or behavior you yourself possess. It actually makes perfect sense.

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drh1138
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13 Dec 2012, 3:57 pm

"Same difference" as comparing two things as alike. To me, it seems little more than further degradation of the English language at the hands of mass culture. It would make sense if two sets of dissimilar things were being compared and each set had analogous differences between their respective members, but it's taken to mean that two things are alike, with no "difference" anywhere.

yellowtamarin
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13 Dec 2012, 11:43 pm

drh1138 wrote:

"Same thing" is said here a lot more often than "same difference". The latter makes me cringe, and I don't think of it as an idiom but just sloppy wording.

MusicIsLife2Me
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14 Dec 2012, 7:32 am

naturalplastic wrote:

MusicIsLife2Me wrote:

Some more that are just plain ODD to me.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".

"A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush".

"More than you can shake a stick at". (I suppose this one might mean something like - the problem is bigger than you can handle?)

"Cutting your nose off to spite your face".

:?:

Keep your friends... Simply means you cant trust anyone- you have to be vigilant and watch everyone. It doesnt mean 'close" in a warm friendly sense.

If you're reduced to living like a caveman and foraging for food in the bush then it would be kinda obvious that "a bird in the hand would be worth several in the bush".

"cutting your nose.." is used to convey the meaning that you're damaging yourself in order to spite someone else in a less damaging to them way. The gory surface imagery is a bit odd, but it got the message across when I first heard it as a child.

"Shaking a stick" IS a bit odd. You got me on that one. My mental image is of a little old bent lady shaking a stick at a huge pile of something nasty to dispose of like horse dung. It so big a pile that you dont have to be accurate to point in its direction ( like 'the side of barn'). So you just have to "shake a stick' to indicate where it is. Maybe.

BTW: The "white on rice" thing has spawned the variant "like ugly on an ape"( you step outta line again soldier, and I'll be on you like ugly on an a ape!")

Thank you for helping me to understand these. Thinking in pictures really gets in the way sometimes. :lol:

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MusicIsLife2Me
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14 Dec 2012, 7:34 am

MrXxx wrote:

MusicIsLife2Me wrote:

Some more that are just plain ODD to me.

Idioms are odd by nature.

Quote:

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".

Keep your friends close is obvious. Keep your enemies closer means, basically, make them think they are your closest friends, so they will confide in you and you'll always know what they're up to.

Quote:

"A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush".

This comes from a fable. It's about greed. A man goes out to catch birds, does catch one, but on the way home finds two birds sitting in bush. In an attempt to catch the other two as well, he loses all three. He was too greedy.

Quote:

"More than you can shake a stick at". (I suppose this one might mean something like - the problem is bigger than you can handle?)

Always known what this one meant, but never really thought about it. It means a lot, but not worth counting. It's origins are unknown, but here's a link with a little more info: http://www.quora.com/Where-does-the-phr ... -originate

Quote:

"Cutting your nose off to spite your face".

This one reminds me of throwing out the baby with the bath water, but it's not quite the same.

Basically it just means that you're willing to hurt yourself in order to hurt others. The idea is that you hate your face, so out of spite for your face, you would cut off your nose. No, it doesn't make sense, because it's not supposed to. If someone were to tell you "You'd cut off your nose to spite your own face," they're telling you that you get so wrapped up in spite, you would do things that make no sense and harm yourself in the process.

Thanks for clarifying for me.

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ColdEyesWarmHeart
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14 Dec 2012, 8:58 am

Swimming awkwardly is called doggy-paddling, but dogs can often swim well if they need to.

And the sex position is called doggy-style, but most 4-legged animals mate like that. So why specifically dogs?

emtyeye
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14 Dec 2012, 10:28 am

MusicIsLife2Me wrote:

My mother uses the "cutting your nose off to spite your face" one a lot, and did when I was a kid also. It has been hard to wrap my head around as well, but it does make sense now. If I try to think about how to say it in another way, it comes out as a lot of words. So, unless someone here needs interperetive help with it, I will resist the challenge.

To me, the first two statement above about friends and birds are more like maxims than metaphores. The stick one is obscure to me, but I think your interperatation is right.

naturalplastic
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14 Dec 2012, 11:08 am

ColdEyesWarmHeart wrote:

Our grandparents were not Phd zoologists. Though many did live on farms with farm animals.

Dogs are common and visible animals. And they are seen to do their business out in the open in front of god and everyone ( and male dogs try to mate with small people like children). So 'doggy style' conveys the idea.

Dogs may swim fast- but they still use essentialy the same paddling style (the same 'stroke') that human novice swimmers use- the dog paddle. Its the technique, not the lack of grace or speed, thats being compared to that of dogs. Ive never seen a dog do the breast stroke, or the crawl. Have you?

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14 Dec 2012, 4:43 pm

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Sorry, but this doesn't work. If you are in the wrong place, it implies that you are there at the right time. If you are there at the wrong time, it implies that you are at the right place.

"I could care less."

I hate this too, and usually respond with, "How much less?" They don't get it. There's also something very ironic about an aspie correcting an NT on their use of an idiom.

I believe the idiom "You're in a sticky wicket" means you're in trouble with somebody.

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15 Dec 2012, 11:20 am

Pan-fried, used to describe shallow-fried food. What else would you use but a pan?

Looking at some wine glasses earlier on and they were labelled 'hand-blown glass'. I knew what they were trying to say, that they were made by a glass-blowing person rather than by machine, but 'mouth-blown glass' would be more accurate. It just made me laugh.

KnarlyDUDE09
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15 Dec 2012, 12:32 pm

I hate the saying, "They have their back up"...I'm not really sure what it means, but I hear my mum say it a lot- it it makes me cringe, EVERY TIME!...I also despise the phrase, "In a nutshell".

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KnarlyDUDE09
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15 Dec 2012, 12:32 pm

I hate the saying, "They have their back up"...I'm not really sure what it means, but I hear my mum say it a lot- it it makes me cringe, EVERY TIME!...I also despise the phrase, "In a nutshell".

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CrinklyCrustacean
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15 Dec 2012, 5:31 pm

KnarlyDUDE09 wrote:

I hate the saying, "They have their back up"...I'm not really sure what it means, but I hear my mum say it a lot- it it makes me cringe, EVERY TIME!

I think it means that someone is aggravated, referring to the way in which animals such as cats will raise their back when they are angry or threatened.

ColdEyesWarmHeart
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15 Dec 2012, 5:52 pm

If someone annoys you they 'put your back up'. You can feel it happening. You go into fight-or-flight and the curve in your back pulls straight so you stand taller, the area between your shoulderblades pulls tight so your shoulders move up and back and you look larger, and your hands clench into fists and move up your body.

Why do we say that people having a vicious argument were 'going at it hammer and tongs'? I know those are blacksmithing tools but I don't get the connection between their functions and fighting?

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17 Dec 2012, 2:36 am

Why do people say "there's more than one way to skin a cat" when they mean there is more than one way to do a job or they are going to use an unusual method to do it?

I suppose if you just wanted to take the skin off the cat, you could do it any way, but there is only one way to get the skin off as a single piece to make a usable fur as far as I can see. Not that I would ever want to skin a cat, I love cats.

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17 Dec 2012, 3:48 am

ColdEyesWarmHeart wrote:

I used hate that expression too until heard the Alabama song "Mountain Music" in which they sing about "spending a day bein' lazy" and sittin under a hickory tree by the river 'skinnin' cats'". Then I realized that the expression is abbreviated hillbilly talk for hooking and gutting cat fish, and has nothing to do with furry mammalian house pets.

I guess preparing cat fish for the frying pan can be done in "more than one way".

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