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Trogluddite
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15 Mar 2016, 12:38 pm

"Everything but the kitchen sink."
- (More stuff than you probably need.)

"I'll have your guts for garters."
- (I will inflict a severe punishment on you.)

"Where there's muck, there's brass."
- (There's always money to be made doing a dirty job that no-one else will do.)

"You can't polish a turd."
- (Something is so awful that you can't possibly do anything that would make it desirable.)

"Closing the gate after the horse has bolted."
- (Doing too little, too late, to prevent a crisis.)

And a couple of odd ones that have completely reversed their meaning with the passage of time...

"Blood is thicker than water."
- Now means: Family bonds are strongest and should be put first.
(Blood = family blood line, Water = just an example of something less thick than blood)
- Originally meant: The bonds of comrades are more important than those of family.
(Blood = blood of comrades shed on the battlefield, Water = the waters that broke when you were born).

"A rolling stone gathers no moss"

- Now means: It's cool to be a freedom loving hippy that never settles down.
- Originally meant: If you never settle down, you will never 'grow' the love and support of the people around you.


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naturalplastic
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17 Mar 2016, 4:28 pm

Then there is

"He couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag!" To disparage a prize fighter.

and...

"It's like shooting fish in a barrel". Something thats so easy that there is no sport in it.

Actually its very hard to "punch your way out of a paper bag". TV game shows,and U Tube videos have been devoted to showing folks enclosed in giant brown paper bags who desperately try, and fail, to punch their way out.

Have never tried it, but I imagine that its probably quite hard to "shoot fish in a barrel" with a firearm.

An old fashioned wooden barrel is tall, starts narrow, gets wide in the middle, and gets narrow again. So its hard to see any fish swimming around in the dark water (which would be blocked from the light by the barrel's sides and by your own head looking in the top opening. Water bends light so it would complicate aiming your gun at any fish (you would have to aim a little above were you see the fish as being. The water would also slow the bullets down.



Trogluddite
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17 Mar 2016, 8:12 pm

"Don't get your knickers in a twist." - Don't over react to a trivial problem.

"Cat got your tongue?" - Don't you have anything to say?

"As useful as a [chocolate teapot / chocolate fire-guard / fart in a spacesuit]" - Not useful at all!

"You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." - Getting a necessary job done sometimes requires doing inconvenient or distasteful things.


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Drawyer
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22 Mar 2016, 5:08 am

(Wow, thanks!)
Take with a grain of salt
This means not to take what someone says too seriously.


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MagicKnight
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28 Mar 2016, 10:58 am

There are so many I can't post here because that'd get me properly banned, for sure.
Does slang count or are you after "actual idioms" only?

Arse to face - backwards, in the wrong order.
You make a better door than a window - you're obstructing my view.
Rare as rocking-horse poo - said of something scarce, hard to find.
In the skuddy - (Scotland) naked.
On your bike! - leave now!
Time to make tracks - I should be going, good bye!
To spend a penny - to get to the bathroom.
Fill your boots! - "help yourself, take a truck-load of that stuff and enjoy to the last bit"!



naturalplastic
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28 Mar 2016, 12:30 pm

Drawyer wrote:
(Wow, thanks!)
Take with a grain of salt
This means not to take what someone says too seriously.


That's a good one.

In ancient Rome, where the court intrigue got intense, and you had to worry about being poisoned, there was a belief that a pinch of salt on food would detoxify poison (NOT true).

Two thousand years later the thinkers of the 1700's Enlightenment, including America's Founding Fathers, were all students of ancient Greece and Rome. And they revived the expression as a metaphor:in a letter someone like Thomas Jefferson would say "Take what so-and-so says with a grain of salt"( ie dont take it as credible/true).



naturalplastic
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28 Mar 2016, 12:33 pm

Trogluddite wrote:
"Don't get your knickers in a twist." - Don't over react to a trivial problem.

"Cat got your tongue?" - Don't you have anything to say?

"As useful as a [chocolate teapot / chocolate fire-guard / fart in a spacesuit]" - Not useful at all!

"You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." - Getting a necessary job done sometimes requires doing inconvenient or distasteful things.


In the US we have "that's about as useful as a screen door on a submarine!". :)



Drawyer
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29 Mar 2016, 5:06 am

^Thanks for your existing.

Jazz something up
If you jazz something up, you add something to try to improve it or make it more stylish.


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