Board index › Coping in life › Social Skills and Making Friends

"There's no flies on her"

Page 2 of 2 [ 22 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

Previous topic | Next topic

Mountain Goat
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 May 2019
Gender: Male
Posts: 14,790
Location: .

02 Dec 2021, 8:13 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Wow this is an old thread.


Is not that old. Is this centuary.


_________________
https://everything2.com/user/Zifendorf/writeups/shutdow


katzhutte
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 27 Nov 2021
Age: 46
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 99

02 Dec 2021, 8:13 pm

I always thought it meant you have a quick mind and metaphorical flies don't have time to land on it i.e quick to understand things , not easily fooled



Mountain Goat
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 13 May 2019
Gender: Male
Posts: 14,790
Location: .

02 Dec 2021, 8:15 pm

Flies do think fast, so is that why flies represent quick thinking? She thinks faster then flies do?


_________________
https://everything2.com/user/Zifendorf/writeups/shutdow


cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Posts: 36,036

02 Dec 2021, 8:17 pm

Never heard of it? must be a regional AmerIcan thing



naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 70
Gender: Male
Posts: 35,189
Location: temperate zone

02 Dec 2021, 8:21 pm

katzhutte wrote:
I always thought it meant you have a quick mind and metaphorical flies don't have time to land on it i.e quick to understand things , not easily fooled


Okay...then that example someone used of the lady "getting on the phone to make a bid" (ie acting fast) would make sense. You move so fast that flies wouldnt mistake you for...roadkill.. and land on you...Lol!.



katzhutte
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 27 Nov 2021
Age: 46
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 99

02 Dec 2021, 8:27 pm

Mountain Goat wrote:
Flies do think fast, so is that why flies represent quick thinking? She thinks faster then flies do?


I just googled it and found this

Quote:
'In the 19th century, to say that "there are no flies on him" of somebody meant that the person was alert and active, probably by allusion to cattle that move around enough to deny flies a landing place.'


this

Quote:
One is wide awake; there is nothing slow or dull about one. For example, She may be new to this field, but there are no flies on her. This slangy expression, which alludes to flies settling on a sluggish animal, was being used in Australia in the 1840s but did not appear in America until the last decades of the 1800s.


and this

Quote:
Definition of no flies on
chiefly British, informal
—used to describe someone as quick to understand things and not easily fooled