Common phrases that are nonsensical

[Sena]

 

"Neither here nor there". So where is it?

[Nine Inch Heels]

1 minute ago, Sena said:

 

"Neither here nor there". So where is it?

That's the point... It's "nowhere"...

[Nootrac4571]

33 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

 Actually not true, because apparently this figure of speech was coined by coal miners in the 1900s, who knew their way around rocks and "hard places"

 

Hmm. Having spent a very nerdy half hour trying to trace a source for that, I'm extremely dubious. The suspiciously specific "Bisbee 1917 miners dispute" explanation seems to be just a bunch of not exactly rigorous websites quoting each other without references or sources and the apparently earliest version of the claim I can find (from phrases.org.uk) is:

 

"It's tempting to surmise, given that the mineworkers were faced with a choice between harsh and underpaid work at the rock-face on the one hand and unemployment and poverty on the other, that this is the source of the phrase."

 

Which is pretty clearly just speculation.

 

(I'm a very boring man, I'm well aware.)

[Nine Inch Heels]

Hence, I said apparently... I didn't bother doing a deep dive, tbf, but if no credible outlet has anything to offer, chances are it's "educated guesswork"... :P

[PeterMoro]

I've always disliked "How do you do?" .........How do i do what?

[Rudolph]

"Double entendre".

 

It is not an actual phrase in French and also it literally translates to "double to hear".

[Nootrac4571]

7 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

chances are it's "educated guesswork"... :P

 

Absolutely, I love folk etymology like this, it says something about the human mind how we latch on to explanations of phrases even if they're likely made up just because they make good stories and we want them to be true. My favourite one is "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey," which people eternally claim refers to the rack which held cannonballs on old warships, despite - ask any naval historian - having no basis in historical fact at all. Someone just made it up, but it seemed interesting and compelling enough that it gained enough traction to stick around no matter how often it's debunked.

[whirledtsar]

You know the phrase "take it with a grain of salt"? That makes sense. But it gets my goat a bit when people say "take it with a huge grain of salt". Thats the opposite, that would mean put a lot of trust into it!

[Wavy]

"Jesus Christ on a bicycle"

 

Yeah, I don't know either.

[Murdoch]

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

This is just a case of people trimming off syllables in common phrases. It's supposed to be "I couldn't care less"

 

Yes, obviously. It's a lazy omission that turns a perfectly sensible expression into complete nonsense.

[Grazza]

Well how about...

Jesus tapdancing Christ on a bike

 

Another one that is just sloppy speaking from people who haven't given any thought to the meaning of the words they are using is "to all intensive purposes".

 

And let's not forget "concur less".

[Chezza]

I think "A piece of cake" doesn't really make sense. How is describing something as a slice of dessert mean it's a simple task to complete? Maybe it's shortened for saying that job is so simple and even desirable to do, it would be equivalent to asking me to eat nice piece of cake?

 

I'll also nitpick these two sayings

 

1. "No pain, no gain" where if you analyze it literally it only applies to very specific scenarios such as weight lifting.

 

2. "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" again if you analyze it in a more literal sense often only applies to specific circumstances otherwise it's a foolish saying. Like what if you break a few bones from a car crash? You're not actually stronger after healed, you will have weakened your body moving forwards.

 

 

 

[Eric Claus]

"Correlation does not equal causation" This is a statement that is true on it's face but the problem is often how it is used.  No a correlation does not necessarily mean there is a causation, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.  Often I have just seen it used as a lazy dismissal of an argument rather than a clarification that just because something seems to line up doesn't mean it is actually the cause.  As I heard somewhere on the internet "No correlation does not equal causation, but it sure as hell can imply one!"

[Dubbag]

"You know what they say, all toasters, toast toast."

[Bridgeburner56]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

between Scylla and Charybdis

Good Trivium song
 

 

[Dark Pulse]

Gotta throw this in here, of course.

 

 

[jval]

Enjoy the Greek language idioms:

 

 

 

[BaileyTW]

1 hour ago, whirledtsar said:

You know the phrase "take it with a grain of salt"? That makes sense. But it gets my goat a bit when people say "take it with a huge grain of salt". Thats the opposite, that would mean put a lot of trust into it!

I always thought "take it with a grain of salt" meant in a literal sense that it tastes mostly okay but maybe salt it just a bit so as a saying would mean it's mostly trustable, so then "take it with a huge grain of salt" would in a literal sense mean that it tastes like ass but is edible at least so as a saying would mean that it is perhaps maybe credible, so while it's weird it still like makes sense.

[Biodegradable]

"Pull your head in."

 

My old man used to say this one a lot whenever he caught me saying or doing something foolish when I was younger. Given how common vernacular is often shaped by lazy omissions as my favourite horse-man pointed out, I reckon this one was formed out of the old, "Pull your head out of your arse" and got warped over time.

[Dexiaz]

6 hours ago, Omniarch said:

"Ja no", a bizarre idiom from my homeland, comes to mind. Literally, it translates to "Yes no", which is oxymoronic. In practice, it can be used as a "maybe", a hesitant affirmative or as a "yes and", among other things. Notably, the idiom is never used in a comparable fashion to the American "Yeah, no".

 

The funny thing, russians uses the phrase "Да нет", which is literally "Yes no" too, but means "not really". Actually, "Da net" doesn't make a sense in official russian language (it's a colloquial phrase).

 

There is the hardcore version, which is also often used: "Да нет наверное", which is literally means "Yes no maybe". This means "I'm not sure", but if you don't know this meaning, it will kill your brain. Like, WTF?

 

----

 

"Руки не доходят посмотреть" - "(My) hands can't come (by using LEGS) to watch/see". This phrase should kill your brain too. Means "I didn't have free time to do this". Often used about watching movies/tv series, but can be used in any other things, even Doom modding (to search/fix bugs, for example).

 

----

 

Does "kill your brain" is actually a normal phrase???

[Stupid Bunny]

11 hours ago, Doomkid said:

One that always bugged me was the phrase "It's always darkest before the dawn". I get that it's metaphorical and means things can still get better even after hitting a low point, but.. It's nonsensical. It's actually always darkest in the absolute middle of the night, when you still have several hours of darkness ahead - nowhere near dawn, the sky starts getting lighter several hours before it could even be considered "dawn".

 

It is, I suppose, typically coldest before the dawn, so if the phrase were amended to that effect it could still be true and also not really lose its meaning.

[Grazza]

40 minutes ago, Stupid Bunny said:

It is, I suppose, typically coldest before the dawn, so if the phrase were amended to that effect it could still be true and also not really lose its meaning.

Well akshully... As a rule of thumb: the coldest temperature is about an hour after sunrise.

 

If you look at temperature records you will find this is a fairly clear pattern on days when there wasn't any dramatic change in progress. Very cold clear winter mornings typically provide good examples. This is one I experienced.

 

Perhaps this is a little different for more equatorial regions where the more rapidly rising sun starts to deliver heat more quickly (as this guy notes).

[Widosm]

"I couldn't care less"

Well if you don't care, why do you care enough to tell me you don't care? That means you do care, meaning you COULD care less. 

[Murdoch]

8 hours ago, Chezza said:

I think "A piece of cake"

 

Oh that reminds me - "You can't have your cake and eat it too." What's the point of having cake and not being able to eat it? It's so fundamentally stupid on every conceivable level that it makes my brain hurt. Even as a metaphor it just doesn't work.

 

And "it's always in the last place you look". Ya think? Do you keep looking for things after you found them? Then of course it's always in the last place you look, you git.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Nobody ever figured out where "the whole nine yards" comes from.

[thiccyosh]

"You do you."

 

What do I do? Me? How? Why should I do myself?

[DSC]

3 hours ago, Grazza said:

rule of thumb

Thats a good one too. Nobody actually even knows where it came from.

[Hellbent]

My dad used to warn me all the time that he was going to read me the riot act. 

 

 

11 hours ago, Chezza said:

I think "A piece of cake" doesn't really make sense. How is describing something as a slice of dessert mean it's a simple task to complete? Maybe it's shortened for saying that job is so simple and even desirable to do, it would be equivalent to asking me to eat nice piece of cake?

 

I'll also nitpick these two sayings

 

1. "No pain, no gain" where if you analyze it literally it only applies to very specific scenarios such as weight lifting.

 

2. "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" again if you analyze it in a more literal sense often only applies to specific circumstances otherwise it's a foolish saying. Like what if you break a few bones from a car crash? You're not actually stronger after healed, you will have weakened your body moving forwards.

No pain, no gain has enough applications. It's a favorite of Doomguy and cyclists, and any endurance athlete for that matter. 

 

2 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Nobody ever figured out where "the whole nine yards" comes from.

Apparently it has a very Doomy origin:

 

Meaning: To try your best at something

Origin: During World War II, the fighter pilots were equipped with nine yards of ammunition. When they ran out, it meant that they had tried their best at fighting off the target with the entirety of their ammunition.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/14-expressions-with-crazy-origins-that-you-would-never-have-guessed/

 

22 minutes ago, DSC said:

Thats a good one too. Nobody actually even knows where it came from.

 

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rule-of-thumb.html

What's the origin of the phrase 'Rule of thumb'?

In the popular imagination, in England at least, the 'rule of thumb' has been said to derive from the belief that English law allowed a man to beat his wife with a stick so long as it is was no thicker than his thumb. [Apparently this is not true]. 

 

The phrase itself has been in circulation since the 1600s. The earliest known use of it in print appears in a sermon given by the English puritan James Durham and printed in Heaven Upon Earth, 1658:

"many profest Christians are like to foolish builders, who build by guess, and by rule of thumb and not by Square and Rule."

The origin of the phrase remains unknown. It is likely that it refers to one of the numerous ways that thumbs have been used to estimate things - judging the alignment or distance of an object by holding the thumb in one's eye-line, the temperature of brews of beer, measurement of an inch from the joint to the nail to the tip, or across the thumb, etc. The phrase joins the whole nine yards as one that probably derives from some form of measurement but which is unlikely ever to be definitively pinned down. The Germans have a similar phrase to indicate a rough approximation - 'pi mal daumen' which translates as 'pi [3.14…] times thumb'.

 

The earliest such 'measurement' use that I can find referred to in print is in a journal of amusing tales with the comprehensive title of Witt's Recreations - Augmented with Ingenious Conceites for the Wittie and Merrie Medicines for the Melancholic. It was published in 1640 and contains this rhyme:

If Hercules tall stature might be guess'd
But by his thumb, the index of the rest,
In due proportion, the best rule that I
Would chuse, to measure Venus beauty by,
Should be her leg and foot:

The 'rule of leg' never caught on.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Hellbent

[Sokoro]

19 minutes ago, DSC said:

Thats a good one too. Nobody actually even knows where it came from.

I thought it was from the way, how you use your hand to figure out coil setup. No?

[Bauul]

2 hours ago, Hellbent said:

My dad used to warn me all the time that he was going to read me the riot act. 

 

This has a proper source IIRC. It comes from an 18th century British law where groups of people could be considered a riot, and therefore forcibly dispersed by police, but only if the authorities audibly read them the "Riot Act" first. Basically a speech that says "disperse or we'll make you".

 

So the phrase "read you the riot act" is a way of saying "I am preparing to tell you to do something different, and if you don't, I'm going to make you".

 

@Doomkid

Quote

Conversely, "always darkest before the dawn" makes no sense literally OR metaphorically - There is never an instance, be it metaphorical or literal, where it is darkest before the dawn! 

 

I wonder if you're over-thinking this a bit. I always took it just mean "every sunrise is preceded by a night". Which is true. 

 

It's also worth pointing out that "dawn" does not mean the same as "sunrise". "Dawn" is the part of the night before sunrise where the sky starts to get lighter as the sun's rays light the atmosphere even when it's still beneath the horizon.

 

So by that logic, even if you are focusing on very specific parts of a given night as you were in your original post, the phrase is still true. Because any light in the sky prior to sunrise can be technically considered dawn. So an absence of such light would be the darkest part of the night, and therefore does come "before dawn".

 

(Incidentally having double checked myself on this I have learned there are in fact three phases to a dawn prior to a sunrise: astronomical twilight, nautical twilight, and civil twilight. Interesting stuff).