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turrell 
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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 Posted - 10/03/2006 : 19:49:02
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There are many well known sayings that frankly don't make a lot of sense to me - I thought I'd put a few down here and ask if you know af any others.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" - this is clearly bad advice, you would think that if they looked inside the mouth of the Trojan HOrse they would have not let it in the gates.
"Those were the salad days" - this is supposed to indicate good times - in other words the golden days - the only problem is you would think that in good times you would be eating prime rib, filet mignon etc. When you are broke and you bring a date to a restaurant it is recommended that you order a salad to reduce expenses and hopefully encourage her to follow suit - therefore the "salad days" would indicate a time of wanting not of plenty.
Which other ones come to mind? |
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randall 
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 10/03/2006 : 21:26:27
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One's "salad days" mean exactly what you've described: young'uns ekeing it out on restaurant "pay". The first impecunious days of a showbiz career.
EDIT: I went back and looked on Wikipedia, and found a more nuanced description, but it still refers to newbiedom. |
Edited by - randall on 10/03/2006 21:33:18 |
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turrell
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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Posted - 10/03/2006 : 21:46:14
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Its still seems weired to me to glorify the days when you were green and often misjudged things (or when you were broke and had to eat salads unless its one of those massive dinner salads at the Cheesecake Factory - thats a meal and a half).
Any others? |
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MguyXXVI 
"X marks the spot"
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Posted - 10/03/2006 : 22:55:17
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It sounds like you might have the "gift horse" phrase confused with the "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" phrase.
The "gift horse" phrase makes a lot of sense when you look at what it literally indicates. As my good friend duh would tell us, one can generally tell a horse's age by the number and type of teeth it has; hence the phrase translates as follows: if one gives you a horse as a gift, don't insult the donor by questioning the age/value.
Now, on the one hand, I get the sentiment; but on the other, I gotta say I don't want any "White Elephants" as gifts.
The one that bugs me is "Keep a stiff upper lip." I know what it means, but it's just an inaccurate observation: since any number of emotions can still be expressed while one's upper lip is stiff, I don't see why it should corner the market on stoicism. |
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Downtown 
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 10/03/2006 : 23:39:03
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The expression "don't look a gift horse in the mouth," was really just a warning about their poor oral hygiene. It's not a pretty sight in there.
Now if I hear one person say "I could care less," when they meant to say, "I couldn't care less," I might just lose it. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/03/2006 : 23:44:00
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You can't have your cake and eat it. Oh yes I can. Look ... I have the cake. Hey, look, I'm eating the cake. Yum!
Now, what it should say is: you can't eat your cake and have it. 'Cause if you've eaten it, you don't have it any more.
[Not that I'm allowed to even HAVE the expletive deleted cake any more  ]
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 00:20:13
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There's the expression "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain".
Oh no it doesn't, it falls mainly in the North whereas the plain is pretty arid.
"Salad days" puts me in mind of "Green behind the ears", which in human anatomy makes no sense, so I guess its a cereal metaphor. Or is my thinking a-rye?  |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 00:37:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
There's the expression "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain".
Oh no it doesn't, it falls mainly in the North whereas the plain is pretty arid.
"Salad days" puts me in mind of "Green behind the ears", which in human anatomy makes no sense, so I guess its a cereal metaphor. Or is my thinking a-rye?
I believe the expression is "wet behind the ears" which seems valid as a description of someone too undeveloped and/or inexperienced to wipe themselves dry. Of course, you may be referring to someone who refrains from wiping their wet corn and the corn gets wet-rot and turns green. But I couldn't possibly comment 
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thefoxboy
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 00:38:12
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
There's the expression "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain".
Oh no it doesn't, it falls mainly in the North whereas the plain is pretty arid.
It fell mainly in my tent when I was camping in Spain.  |
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MguyXXVI
"X marks the spot"
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 02:51:55
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"Green behind the ears" is simply a misquote of "wet behind the ears." The phrase comes from herding, as a calf maintains a degree of moistness behind the ears for some while.
One of my favorites is "Swinging the lead." No one in America -- except me -- knows what it means. I remember seeing Tom Jones in concert after he had just released the album/CD "The Lead and How To Swing It." He made a quick joke about it on stage that no one seemed to know what the hell it meant. I resisted the urge to be the geek who chimes in "Ooo! Ooo! I know what it means!"
Anyone else know what it means?
Sailors of earlier times would take depth measurements by dropping a plumb line into the water, plumb lines typically having a lead weight on it. Crew members generally viewed this as a cushy job, since all you had to do was drop a weight in the water and reel it in once you reached the bottom. To escape being assigned additional duties after doing a depth reading, sailors developed elaborate rituals for taking the measurement, including "swinging the lead" various ways and launching it various distances from the ship; in reality, they were just wasting time to avoid other unpleasant tasks. Hence, swinging the lead means purposely wasting time, usually to avoid work. |
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duh 
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 16:19:21
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"Don't change horses in midstream."
Curious about this, I googled and learned:
Meaning
Don't change your leader or your basic position when part-way through a campaign or a project .
Origin
From an 1864 speech by Abraham Lincoln, in reply to Delegation from the National Union League who were urging him to be their presidential candidate. 'An old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams."
What would happen if one did change horses midstream? Odds are increased that one would end up swimming to the shore, perhaps due to the difficulty of transferring from one animal to the other.
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Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 16:57:58
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| Frankly, I think "don't change horses..." and "wet behind the ears" are perfectly worded. |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 17:48:56
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quote:
Originally posted by MguyX
"Green behind the ears" is simply a misquote of "wet behind the ears." Anyone else know what it means?
If its just a misquote then its misquoted an awful lot. Google gives 16,300 examples of "green behind the ears", admittedly a lot less than "wet behind the ears" but still, a lot for a simple misquote.
It's certainly an expression I have heard since I was very young, and it strikes me that corn has ears and is green when unripe so there may be some connection?! Of course this doesn't explain why it's green behind the ears, but "green in the ears" could have become corrupted over the years.
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Warzonkey 
"Seriously Lo-Res"
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 18:03:42
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| Personally, I always found "Don't count your horses before they've leapt out of the frying pan" a bit confusing. Or maybe that's just me? |
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MguyXXVI
"X marks the spot"
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 21:46:56
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quote:
Originally posted by Warzonkey
Personally, I always found "Don't count your horses before they've leapt out of the frying pan" a bit confusing. Or maybe that's just me?
A very common phrase, and perfectly sensible. In fact, its meaning is so clear that I won't insult anyone's intelligence by even trying to explain it. |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 10/04/2006 : 22:07:26
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quote:
Originally posted by MguyX
quote:
Originally posted by Warzonkey
Personally, I always found "Don't count your horses before they've leapt out of the frying pan" a bit confusing. Or maybe that's just me?
A very common phrase, and perfectly sensible. In fact, its meaning is so clear that I won't insult anyone's intelligence by even trying to explain it.
Well I don't mind insulting anyone, so I'll explain it in case nobody understands it. It means "Don't count your horses before they've leapt out of the frying pan." |
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Poorly worded idioms
