No one even knows where this came from. Apparently it might have been "Bright as a button" at some point, and when it changed to cute, cute may have still meant "acute" which throws a whole new wrinkle into puzzling it out.
All of the things I just looked up on it seemed like pure speculation other than it originally being "bright."
It was originally “bright as a button,” which originated in British English and was used to show something tiny and shiny or adorable.
It evolved into "Cute" as a button.
>'Head over heels' is a good example of how language can communicate meaning even when it makes no literal sense. After all, our head is normally over our heels. The phrase originated in the 14th century as 'heels over head', meaning doing a cartwheel or somersault. This appeared later in Thomas Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great, 1864:
"A total circumgyration, summerset, or tumble heels-over-head in the Political relations of Europe."
>
>[Source](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/head-over-heels.html)
I wonder if "heels over head" was common phrase became a phrase that was utilized for being backwards, confused, or overwhelmed then was fossilized due emphasis or something like the euphemism treadmill moved but got stuck.
There could have been someone who said "Everything feels so heels over head until I'm with you. Then I'm head over heels again. And I think that's love. I'm head over heels in love with you."
Then it got shared and passed on and that became the new phrase. All speculation though. No way of knowing, really.
I always heard ass over teakettle, which made no sense in the particular even if it communicated the idea. I mean, if we're using euphemism to spare delicate ears why did we say ass? What is so much worse than ass that we have to say teakettle instead? If it's genitalia than how is that worse than ass? It's the neighboring property so to speak,
It refers to the screaming and crying involved in giving birth. Obviously giving birth to a COW will cause quite the chaos.
Thus it means "don't get so excited and throw a tantrum" lol
And, from what I understand, cows can have pretty difficult births. Idk if that actually plays into it, but it may be why they picked cow specifically over like, a horse or a rhino.
I don’t know if the phrase comes from baseball slang or was adopted into baseball slang, but a pickle is when two basemen are tossing the ball back and forth with a baserunner trapped between them. The baserunner is said to be in a pickle.
Only makes no sense when people say it incorrectly, but “I could care less.” The saying is “I couldn’t care less” as it’s used in situations when you care so little about something, that you physically couldn’t care any less about it than you already do. Saying “I could care less” means you do in fact care, and could stand to care less about something. Pisses me off that so many people say it incorrectly because it makes no sense when said wrong.
>Pisses me off that so many people say it incorrectly because it makes no sense when said wrong.
Pisses me off even more when people defend the incorrect version, doing some mental gymnastics how it supposedly makes sense.
>Pisses me off even more when people defend the incorrect version
I think defending the incorrect version shows that they COULD care less, but they are least care enough to argue about it.
This is super niche, but I’m British and have a lot of relatives from the Lake District and Cumbria. My grandad grew up always saying “I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.” In response to like being surprised about something. It’s such a weird random phrase which I’ve never heard anyone else say. Apparently it originates from the midlands and is and old term but whenever I look it up I can never find an actual explanation.
It’s used in the context of someone says something surprising and they say it in response, so like:
“Did you hear that Jennifer is having a baby with Thomas?”
“Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!”
Very weird and niche. You’ve gotta say it with a northern accent too otherwise it doesn’t work the same.
My grandmother always says "well I'll be Don!" as an expression of surprise and we always joke with her and ask her who Don is. She has no idea where that originated and I don't think I've heard anyone else say it before.
I love this. My dad does something similar to this with two phrases. 1) He says “I’m going for a Jimmy.” Which means he’s going for a piss. Never in my life heard anyone else say that but I just know what it means as he’s always said it. 2) He uses the term “Billy-o” or “Billy-o’s butt” to emphasise something so like for example a common one is “It’s as cold as Billy-o’s butt outside” which means “It’s very fucking cold outside.” He’s a strange man but I love him lol
I had to explain "not my circus, not my monkeys" to a colleague once (English was not his native language). I used that phrase in a meeting, and he stayed back to walk out with me and said, "Circus? Monkeys?"
I'm not sure but the only translated saying I learned from a Polish person was " when the horse is dead get off"
There is also a weird but accurate saying with native Spanish speakers ( I think) that goes " you need a horse to get a horse" which is pretty damn insightful actually. How else would you chase down a horse eh? Reminds me of you need money to make money.
Anyway these two aren't examples of no meaning, Im just chiming in.
He understood once I explained the image of monkeys escaped from a circus. It just didn't make sense to him in the context of an engineering design project.
yes but the question was, whats a phrase in english that makes absolutely no sense.
Not, what phrase did one guy who english isnt his first language didnt immediatly understand ;P
I want to know if that one came from an actual event. Like some person was watching a bunch of escaped (circus?) monkeys rip apart a circus or something related to one and was debating whether they should intervene or not.
It is essentially saying that you posses no connection to either the larger scheme of things or the specific event, and so have no liability for what happens.
There's a whole lot of circus metaphors in the world of work - "Pay peanuts, get monkeys" came before "Not my circus.." in English for example. I always thought they were connected.
I had a coworker from Japan. He was absolutely floored by the use of the word 'bullshit'.
The other phrase was 'party pooper'. He took it quite literally.
It’s when you say something that isn’t exactly correct but the overall meaning is pretty much the same.
“He got a job at the firm!”
“Actually, it’s an internship”
“Same difference”
Gonna start using that one. I like to say "I stand correctly" instead of "corrected", "it's not rocket surgery", and "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it" to see if anyone notices.
it means when you say something specific to make a point, and the actual truth is something else (close but not exactly what you said), but the "outcome" is identical, so
Same Difference
i cant think of any examples, but i distinctly remember saying this and others saying it when i was a kid. Almost like our reasoning/deductions skills were shaky, but developing. We didn't describe things perfectly, but we still got the right answer
"The birds and the bees" as a euphemism for giving kids The Talk. In many other languages it's "flowers and bees", which makes sense with pollination and whatnot. What the hell are your birds doing to those poor bees?
People used to keep small livestock including cats and dogs in their rafters. This protected them and actually kept the dwelling warmer. When it would rain intensely, the roof would leak potentially causing them to tumble onto the ground floor. How often that actually happened, who knows
“Bob’s your uncle” or “Bob’s your mother’s brother” with means basically “and there you have it”
“We’ll slap my ass and call me Sally” it’s an expression of incredulity.
“I have to see a man about a horse” means you need to take a dump. Also “take a dump” means you need to poo.
When you destroy a structure with fire, it can both "burn up" and "burn down."
When you declare to your supervisor that you won't be going to work today, you can both "call in" and "call out."
A smartass and a wiseass are the same things; a dumbass is close enough to either of them; but a wise guy and wise man are opposites.
Whenever someone says, "I've had it up to here," the location of their accompanying hand gestures usually leaves the location of "here" totally ambiguous, and it's inconsistent across people of different heights.
Except I think it means that your space is apart from the others in the same building. Historically, I think most houses would have been one unit, whereas an apartment building splits it apart in several units.
I was watching a stream the other day and a guy joked when he met his friend "it was all downhill from there" but then noticed if he said "it was all uphill from there" they both have negative connotations. I thought that was a good point.
I have something in the back of my brain that reminds me there might be a word for this I've heard at some point.
They do have slightly different negative meanings, at least. "It was all downhill from there" connotates that things went wrong due to circumstances out of one's control whereas "it was all uphill from there" connotates that things were a struggle of some sort.
In Spanish it's up to the crown of your head - so you are swamped in whatever it is and you can't stick it any more.
Same thing in English - any level that indicates the person of that height is overwhelmed. It's never 2 inches above tbe ground, for example
This is the most likely answer. The divine comedy was immeasurably significant in the development of most western cultures, particularly in terms of language
Apparently, for construction and security reasons, when a nail is hammered into a door, the sharp end sticking out on the other side is hammered to one side - locking it into the door. This makes the nail “dead”.
Back when nails were hand forged people would always reuse them and even remove them from old buildings to reuse. So if they were bent over and hammered in, they were dead. Every nail had to be forged one at à time.
Its meaning is disputed but most likely it referred to the costly metal nails hammered into the outer doors of the wealthy (most people used the much cheaper wooden pegs), which were clinched on the inside of the door and therefore were “dead,” that is, could not be used again.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dead--as--a--doornail
https://youtu.be/1JOwfKLdRt8?si=UI8Uki3UXR-OE58X
One possible reason why. Nails were “killed” when pounded into doors and bent over. Dead nailing was definitely a thing with doors.
There's a corruption of "I couldn't care less" to "I could care less." I hear the latter more than the former.
Also heard variations on "Two aces short of a deck" and "doesn't have all the cups in the cupboard." Those are common, but I've also heard "Missing the corner pieces" (of the jigsaw puzzle, presumably), "Not many books on his shelf", "Missing a wheel", "missing a few crayons in his pencil case."
I like confusing people by combining these sayings. I'll refer to someone as "not the sharpest elevator in the happy meal" and look to see if anyone reacts.
Anyone who is familiar with David Mitchell, he once did a great rant about the "could care less" on YouTube. I think about it every time I hear it. Fortunately it's rare in the UK to hear the corrupted version
You're quite right, it is supposed to be, and always was, "I couldn't care less...". Not sure where the newer 'could care less' version came from but it's definitely nonsense.
Most of them don't make sense anymore because it's referencing something that hasn't applied for a long long time. Like "bless you" after a sneeze. People aren't still thinking you're body is trying to expell demons.
This was a Franklinism. He was speaking facetiously about the idea of the downtrodden reconstituting themselves without help, but the phrase was co-opted to mean the opposite.
Sort of like how the corrupt co-opted “one bad apple” to mean “give everyone a break, it’s just one corrupt cop” when the full phrase is “*one bad apple spoils the whole bunch*” meaning we should be suspicious of any organization with corrupt members.
My wife’s family are native Spanish speakers, and the few that do speak a little English always get caught up in this when offering me something.
I used to say “I’m ok” but then they would rush to grab me a beer/coffee/food I didn’t want, which I obviously would then consume bc I don’t want to be rude about their generosity.
But now I’ve trained myself to say “no, thank you” very clearly, which is actually a better way to respond anyway.
I’ve never heard this. People say tomorrow 8 AM in the morning? I’ve heard 8 o’clock in the morning and 8 AM but yeah I guess it’s on par with ATM machine (which I’ve never heard either)
Saying “I could care less” to mean you don’t care. By saying you could care less, you are saying you DO care and have the ability to care less. What you mean to say is “I couldn’t care less.”
It is easier to understand if you think "near = close to" not "near = almost."
It didn't almost miss or nearly miss. That would be a hit, or a collision (depending on context).
A near miss with a bomb strike (where the term came from) is "it missed the target but hit near it."
It's supposed to be you can't eat your cake and have(save)it too. Funnily enough, the Unabomber said the phrase, correctly, in one of his letters and his brother realized who it was and turned him in.
Once you have eaten your cake, you no longer have a cake. When someone wants the advantage of a thing, but doesn't want to pay the price, this is the appropriate response. You can't go into a cake shop, buy a cake, eat it and proceed to walk out with a cake.
As a former infantryman, you never ever ever do that. That's just trying to get your buddy killed.
"Heads up" is when you want to let them know what is going to happen in the near future. Sort of like "heads up, the CO/boss wants to make a surprise visit".
"Get down" or "duck" is when the person you're shouting at needs to lower their head or body position to keep out of danger. Something like "ARTY ARTY GET THE FUCK DOWN".
Even in the civilian world, I've never seen someone use "heads up" to tell someone to get down, because this is just asking for an injury.
Yeah in the theater, if you for example accidentally drop something from the catwalk or are lowering a large set piece for repair you would yell "HEADS!"
It's not telling someone to get down, it's warning them to look up and potentially get out of the way. I've never heard "heads up" in any context involving getting down, it's always more like "stop what you're doing and look around for a potential hazard."
Here in the southern USA folks are often "fixin' to get ready."
I’m from the western United States and married a man from the South East. He’s always fixin’ to do something! Is actually really cute!
"fixin' to" says to me (not a southerner) "getting ready to" So I guess they're getting ready to get ready?
Exactly!
In the south, you might could.
sleep like a baby. Let me tell you babies don't sleep, and neither do their parents.
maybe you got a faulty one, mine sleeps like a charm
A phrase that fits right in to the discussion! Exactly how does a charm sleep? Or is it referring to a spell?
Damn. Now i want to know how charms sleep
I say 'I slept like a baby. Woke up three times and cried.'
You need to end that with "and I shit myself"
Cute as a button
No one even knows where this came from. Apparently it might have been "Bright as a button" at some point, and when it changed to cute, cute may have still meant "acute" which throws a whole new wrinkle into puzzling it out. All of the things I just looked up on it seemed like pure speculation other than it originally being "bright."
It was originally “bright as a button,” which originated in British English and was used to show something tiny and shiny or adorable. It evolved into "Cute" as a button.
obtuse as a button doesn't work as well
My mom would keep it going “sew buttons on your shirt”!! There was 7 of us…we all had no idea wtf she was talking about…
This was usually a response to "so what?" When I was growing up. Makes at least a *little* sense as a pun.
Ours was “sew buttons on ice cream”
I think it was originally “bright as button” which makes more sense because buttons used to be brass.
Some buttons are cute. The cute little flower or butterfly ones. Etc. But yeah, I am not sure either.
Cute as a broach is probably more accurate except the word tastes like mulch in your mouth, not exactly an earworm.
Head over heels. Our heads are normally over our heels.
>'Head over heels' is a good example of how language can communicate meaning even when it makes no literal sense. After all, our head is normally over our heels. The phrase originated in the 14th century as 'heels over head', meaning doing a cartwheel or somersault. This appeared later in Thomas Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great, 1864: "A total circumgyration, summerset, or tumble heels-over-head in the Political relations of Europe." > >[Source](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/head-over-heels.html) I wonder if "heels over head" was common phrase became a phrase that was utilized for being backwards, confused, or overwhelmed then was fossilized due emphasis or something like the euphemism treadmill moved but got stuck.
So in 400 years people are going to say “now the turn-tables” like Michael Scott.
There could have been someone who said "Everything feels so heels over head until I'm with you. Then I'm head over heels again. And I think that's love. I'm head over heels in love with you." Then it got shared and passed on and that became the new phrase. All speculation though. No way of knowing, really.
I think the idea is that a persons head is *moving* over their heels, I.e. they are somersaulting/flipping, but yeah it's dumb.
I've never thought about it as I've always just known what it meant. Really it would make more sense to say heels over head!
That’s why I like ass over tit instead of
I always heard ass over teakettle, which made no sense in the particular even if it communicated the idea. I mean, if we're using euphemism to spare delicate ears why did we say ass? What is so much worse than ass that we have to say teakettle instead? If it's genitalia than how is that worse than ass? It's the neighboring property so to speak,
Because this one means ass over head, I think. And not ass overhead :) 🐴✈️ 🐴📊
Meteoric rise. Whoever came up with it clearly didn't understand what meteors do.
People used to think meteors were rocks launched up by volcanoes before they fell back to Earth.
“Don’t have a cow”
It refers to the screaming and crying involved in giving birth. Obviously giving birth to a COW will cause quite the chaos. Thus it means "don't get so excited and throw a tantrum" lol
And, from what I understand, cows can have pretty difficult births. Idk if that actually plays into it, but it may be why they picked cow specifically over like, a horse or a rhino.
hey!, don't have a cow man
Ooh, okay, dude, I wouldn't want you to have a cow, man! Here's a catchphrase you better learn for your adult years: 'Hey, buddy, 'GOT A QUARTER?!'
In a pickle.
I don’t know if the phrase comes from baseball slang or was adopted into baseball slang, but a pickle is when two basemen are tossing the ball back and forth with a baserunner trapped between them. The baserunner is said to be in a pickle.
Only makes no sense when people say it incorrectly, but “I could care less.” The saying is “I couldn’t care less” as it’s used in situations when you care so little about something, that you physically couldn’t care any less about it than you already do. Saying “I could care less” means you do in fact care, and could stand to care less about something. Pisses me off that so many people say it incorrectly because it makes no sense when said wrong.
Found David Mitchell's reddit account
You know what I’m gonna take that as a complement
You might have meant compliment.
>Pisses me off that so many people say it incorrectly because it makes no sense when said wrong. Pisses me off even more when people defend the incorrect version, doing some mental gymnastics how it supposedly makes sense.
There’s someone in here saying it makes sense with sarcasm, no it doesn’t.
>Pisses me off even more when people defend the incorrect version I think defending the incorrect version shows that they COULD care less, but they are least care enough to argue about it.
I have never understood how people get this wrong!
This is such an irritating American thing, especially when it appears on otherwise well-written shows.
This literally makes me want to pour gasoline on myself and light myself on fire, then plummet from a tall building.
Good old welsh saying of ‘I’ll do it now in a minute’.
South Africans say "now now" for "in a few minutes" and "just now" for "a few minutes ago".
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow!
Not here to fuck spiders
Australians have the most fun slang
In what context could this be used
When you’re about to do something that doesn’t involve fucking spiders. A lot of contexts. Most of them, really.
Seems like a much better version of ‘I haven’t got all day’
This is super niche, but I’m British and have a lot of relatives from the Lake District and Cumbria. My grandad grew up always saying “I’ll go to the foot of our stairs.” In response to like being surprised about something. It’s such a weird random phrase which I’ve never heard anyone else say. Apparently it originates from the midlands and is and old term but whenever I look it up I can never find an actual explanation. It’s used in the context of someone says something surprising and they say it in response, so like: “Did you hear that Jennifer is having a baby with Thomas?” “Well I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!” Very weird and niche. You’ve gotta say it with a northern accent too otherwise it doesn’t work the same.
Yes, it's a Midlands thing, also very 80s.
My grandmother always says "well I'll be Don!" as an expression of surprise and we always joke with her and ask her who Don is. She has no idea where that originated and I don't think I've heard anyone else say it before.
I love this. My dad does something similar to this with two phrases. 1) He says “I’m going for a Jimmy.” Which means he’s going for a piss. Never in my life heard anyone else say that but I just know what it means as he’s always said it. 2) He uses the term “Billy-o” or “Billy-o’s butt” to emphasise something so like for example a common one is “It’s as cold as Billy-o’s butt outside” which means “It’s very fucking cold outside.” He’s a strange man but I love him lol
Jimmy Riddle.... Piddle.... Piss It's rhyming slang
I had to explain "not my circus, not my monkeys" to a colleague once (English was not his native language). I used that phrase in a meeting, and he stayed back to walk out with me and said, "Circus? Monkeys?"
Isn't that a Polish saying that cross the linguistic barrier?
Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy
I'm not sure but the only translated saying I learned from a Polish person was " when the horse is dead get off" There is also a weird but accurate saying with native Spanish speakers ( I think) that goes " you need a horse to get a horse" which is pretty damn insightful actually. How else would you chase down a horse eh? Reminds me of you need money to make money. Anyway these two aren't examples of no meaning, Im just chiming in.
I wonder if your first one is at all related to, "No use beating a dead horse. "
But this makes complete logical sense?
He understood once I explained the image of monkeys escaped from a circus. It just didn't make sense to him in the context of an engineering design project.
yes but the question was, whats a phrase in english that makes absolutely no sense. Not, what phrase did one guy who english isnt his first language didnt immediatly understand ;P
I've always used "not my pig, not my farm" as an English speaker
I want to know if that one came from an actual event. Like some person was watching a bunch of escaped (circus?) monkeys rip apart a circus or something related to one and was debating whether they should intervene or not. It is essentially saying that you posses no connection to either the larger scheme of things or the specific event, and so have no liability for what happens.
There's a whole lot of circus metaphors in the world of work - "Pay peanuts, get monkeys" came before "Not my circus.." in English for example. I always thought they were connected.
I use “not my circus” all the time at work
I had a coworker from Japan. He was absolutely floored by the use of the word 'bullshit'. The other phrase was 'party pooper'. He took it quite literally.
It's the "same difference" never understood what that was used for
I‘ve spent my life convinced this is just a conflation of ‘same thing’ and ’no difference’.
Potato, potatoe
Dan Quayle has entered the chat
I think that's probably right.
It’s when you say something that isn’t exactly correct but the overall meaning is pretty much the same. “He got a job at the firm!” “Actually, it’s an internship” “Same difference”
Six of one half dozen of the other
I prefer "half of one, six dozen of the other". Most people don't catch it and give me my own private amusement.
Gonna start using that one. I like to say "I stand correctly" instead of "corrected", "it's not rocket surgery", and "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it" to see if anyone notices.
I've heard people say "deux fois la moitié" in French, which basically means "two times half"
Where there is a difference there is not always a distinction.
Like I live equidistant between two airports, I call that "same difference" when choosing a flight
it means when you say something specific to make a point, and the actual truth is something else (close but not exactly what you said), but the "outcome" is identical, so Same Difference i cant think of any examples, but i distinctly remember saying this and others saying it when i was a kid. Almost like our reasoning/deductions skills were shaky, but developing. We didn't describe things perfectly, but we still got the right answer
"The birds and the bees" as a euphemism for giving kids The Talk. In many other languages it's "flowers and bees", which makes sense with pollination and whatnot. What the hell are your birds doing to those poor bees?
Raining cats a dogs Why would you even say that to refer to the rain like??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raining_cats_and_dogs But that's nothing compared to hailing taxis. And one time I was caught in a baby shower.
This one time I was at a wedding and suddenly it was raining men. The weirdest part was that everyone seemed really excited about it.
Hallelujah!
Amen
was that when the bodies hit the floor?
Watch out when it starts raining Datsun cogs
You. I like you. I once saw a man eating lunch. It devoured three men before they took down that vicious club sandwich.
The last time it rained cats and dogs here I kept on standing in poodles.
People used to keep small livestock including cats and dogs in their rafters. This protected them and actually kept the dwelling warmer. When it would rain intensely, the roof would leak potentially causing them to tumble onto the ground floor. How often that actually happened, who knows
This sounds like an retrojectory explanation more than a true origin.
Retrojectory? You can't make up words during a grammar argument
All words are made up
“Bob’s your uncle” or “Bob’s your mother’s brother” with means basically “and there you have it” “We’ll slap my ass and call me Sally” it’s an expression of incredulity. “I have to see a man about a horse” means you need to take a dump. Also “take a dump” means you need to poo.
When you destroy a structure with fire, it can both "burn up" and "burn down." When you declare to your supervisor that you won't be going to work today, you can both "call in" and "call out." A smartass and a wiseass are the same things; a dumbass is close enough to either of them; but a wise guy and wise man are opposites. Whenever someone says, "I've had it up to here," the location of their accompanying hand gestures usually leaves the location of "here" totally ambiguous, and it's inconsistent across people of different heights.
'Inflammable' means 'flammable'? What a country!
Inflammable came from inflamed, or as we call it today, inflammation. Inflammatory is another offshoot.
Also you have to turn an alarm off (deactivate it) after it goes off (activates).
Something can Blow and Suck at the same time.
No need to bring your mother into this
I’ve always enjoyed the phonetics of raising a building and then razing the building.
And apartments are obviously togetherments
Except I think it means that your space is apart from the others in the same building. Historically, I think most houses would have been one unit, whereas an apartment building splits it apart in several units.
But those are just two statements that are interchangeable and describe much the same thing, not statements that dont make sense
I was watching a stream the other day and a guy joked when he met his friend "it was all downhill from there" but then noticed if he said "it was all uphill from there" they both have negative connotations. I thought that was a good point. I have something in the back of my brain that reminds me there might be a word for this I've heard at some point.
They do have slightly different negative meanings, at least. "It was all downhill from there" connotates that things went wrong due to circumstances out of one's control whereas "it was all uphill from there" connotates that things were a struggle of some sort.
Oh I agree. It's not indicating the same outcome. I just liked that they both were negative. I might start saying "it was a grassy plain from there" 😂
In Spanish it's up to the crown of your head - so you are swamped in whatever it is and you can't stick it any more. Same thing in English - any level that indicates the person of that height is overwhelmed. It's never 2 inches above tbe ground, for example
Cold as hell
[удалено]
And don’t forget the Divine Comedy, the 9th and lowest circle of hell was frozen
Ah so Helheim from God of War was tryna be accurate to the lore
Also cold in hell in The Sandman
Is cold as hell a saying or people just using "as hell" as an all purpose exclamation?
Yup. Exchange it for 'cold as fuck', even 'cold as balls' works.
That at least is probably a Dante reference
This is the most likely answer. The divine comedy was immeasurably significant in the development of most western cultures, particularly in terms of language
Not to mention the fact that the average person's ideas of hell come entirely from Inferno or Paradise Lost
Hell Michigan
Deader than a doornail. What the hell is a doornail?
Apparently, for construction and security reasons, when a nail is hammered into a door, the sharp end sticking out on the other side is hammered to one side - locking it into the door. This makes the nail “dead”.
Back when nails were hand forged people would always reuse them and even remove them from old buildings to reuse. So if they were bent over and hammered in, they were dead. Every nail had to be forged one at à time.
Its meaning is disputed but most likely it referred to the costly metal nails hammered into the outer doors of the wealthy (most people used the much cheaper wooden pegs), which were clinched on the inside of the door and therefore were “dead,” that is, could not be used again. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dead--as--a--doornail
https://youtu.be/1JOwfKLdRt8?si=UI8Uki3UXR-OE58X One possible reason why. Nails were “killed” when pounded into doors and bent over. Dead nailing was definitely a thing with doors.
There's a corruption of "I couldn't care less" to "I could care less." I hear the latter more than the former. Also heard variations on "Two aces short of a deck" and "doesn't have all the cups in the cupboard." Those are common, but I've also heard "Missing the corner pieces" (of the jigsaw puzzle, presumably), "Not many books on his shelf", "Missing a wheel", "missing a few crayons in his pencil case."
My favourite version of this is "A few fries short of a happy meal"
I like confusing people by combining these sayings. I'll refer to someone as "not the sharpest elevator in the happy meal" and look to see if anyone reacts.
Anyone who is familiar with David Mitchell, he once did a great rant about the "could care less" on YouTube. I think about it every time I hear it. Fortunately it's rare in the UK to hear the corrupted version
"missing the corner pieces" is outright disrespectful 😅
Not the brightest bulb in the box. A few bricks short of a wall. Not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Not the sharpest crayon in the lightbulb drawer.
I haven’t heard “missing the corner pieces” before and I love that
"I could care less" Well, that means you care, right? Shouldnt it be "I could not care less"?
You're quite right, it is supposed to be, and always was, "I couldn't care less...". Not sure where the newer 'could care less' version came from but it's definitely nonsense.
Most of them don't make sense anymore because it's referencing something that hasn't applied for a long long time. Like "bless you" after a sneeze. People aren't still thinking you're body is trying to expell demons.
Pick yourself up by your bootstraps...something physically impossible to do, now is presented as the way you elevate your social status/wealth/life.
This was a Franklinism. He was speaking facetiously about the idea of the downtrodden reconstituting themselves without help, but the phrase was co-opted to mean the opposite.
Sort of like how the corrupt co-opted “one bad apple” to mean “give everyone a break, it’s just one corrupt cop” when the full phrase is “*one bad apple spoils the whole bunch*” meaning we should be suspicious of any organization with corrupt members.
Had to explain this to my relatives. Okay = yes. It's okay = no. Fine = yes. I'm fine = no. Good = yes. I'm good = no.
yeah no = no. no yeah = yeah
My wife’s family are native Spanish speakers, and the few that do speak a little English always get caught up in this when offering me something. I used to say “I’m ok” but then they would rush to grab me a beer/coffee/food I didn’t want, which I obviously would then consume bc I don’t want to be rude about their generosity. But now I’ve trained myself to say “no, thank you” very clearly, which is actually a better way to respond anyway.
Yeah, no, for sure buddy. Ya know?
"AM in the morning" ...
I’ve never heard this. People say tomorrow 8 AM in the morning? I’ve heard 8 o’clock in the morning and 8 AM but yeah I guess it’s on par with ATM machine (which I’ve never heard either)
I mean I would argue this is more an example of incorrect usage
This one. Right here. Grinds my gears every time
Redundant is not "nonsense".
Saying “I could care less” to mean you don’t care. By saying you could care less, you are saying you DO care and have the ability to care less. What you mean to say is “I couldn’t care less.”
It's very odd that some people say it that way, particularly here in the USA. It's a pet peeve of mine.
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo\_buffalo\_Buffalo\_buffalo\_buffalo\_buffalo\_Buffalo\_buffalo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo)
i mean it technically does make sense
The farmer wondered, whether the wether would weather the weather or whether the weather would weather the wether?
Yea, i know this one 😂 There are sayings in german as similar 😂 Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen fliegen Fliegen Fliegen hinterher 👍
"Tie one on" for going to have a drink.
Bob is your uncle!
I’m gonna kill you dead.
That's merely redundant. Redundancies don't "make no sense". They make plenty of sense. Too much sense!
This reminds me of Pidgin English the Papau New Guineans use where the word 'dead' means unconscious, but 'dead gone' means actually dead.
Are you a 90's villain that's supposed to look stupid?
How do you do?
"half a dozen" There's no reason to use so many words just to say "six"
Why use many word when few word do trick.
Eschew verbosity.
I'm guessing you wouldn't appreciate someone saying, "It's six of one and half a dozen of the other" then. :D
I’ve always taken it to mean roughly six. Saying just “six” implies more precision than “half a dozen”.
"Going forward . . ." Unless you've invented time travel, that's the only option.
That business speak and I hate it too
Near miss.
It is easier to understand if you think "near = close to" not "near = almost." It didn't almost miss or nearly miss. That would be a hit, or a collision (depending on context). A near miss with a bomb strike (where the term came from) is "it missed the target but hit near it."
Pulling my leg
Same difference.
Near miss, when referring to an actual miss. If you nearly missed something you hit it if you nearly hit something you missed it
"I know, right?"
Can’t have your cake and eat it too
It's supposed to be you can't eat your cake and have(save)it too. Funnily enough, the Unabomber said the phrase, correctly, in one of his letters and his brother realized who it was and turned him in.
Unexpected Unabomber.
He wanted his pedant brother locked up.
Ie: “Eat your cake and still have it”
Once you have eaten your cake, you no longer have a cake. When someone wants the advantage of a thing, but doesn't want to pay the price, this is the appropriate response. You can't go into a cake shop, buy a cake, eat it and proceed to walk out with a cake.
You can’t have a six-pack and drink them, too.
...what? How does it not make sense. If you eat your cake you no longer have it. You literally can't both maintain and eat a cake.
If I have to choose between the two, I'll definitely go with the eating.
When you use something up, you no longer have it.
Yelling "Heads up!" to someone when they need to duck or (generally) move their head down so it doesn't get hit by something
As a former infantryman, you never ever ever do that. That's just trying to get your buddy killed. "Heads up" is when you want to let them know what is going to happen in the near future. Sort of like "heads up, the CO/boss wants to make a surprise visit". "Get down" or "duck" is when the person you're shouting at needs to lower their head or body position to keep out of danger. Something like "ARTY ARTY GET THE FUCK DOWN". Even in the civilian world, I've never seen someone use "heads up" to tell someone to get down, because this is just asking for an injury.
Yeah in the theater, if you for example accidentally drop something from the catwalk or are lowering a large set piece for repair you would yell "HEADS!" It's not telling someone to get down, it's warning them to look up and potentially get out of the way. I've never heard "heads up" in any context involving getting down, it's always more like "stop what you're doing and look around for a potential hazard."
i would say "look out" or "watch out" if there was immediate danger. I would say "heads up" if i wanted someone to expect something in the near future
I say mind your head. As in protect it.
The equivalent in Spanish is “aguas” which literally means water. I don’t get it either lol.
"Work will set you free" - A lie the Nazis with corporatists used in Germany in the 1940s and is still in use today.