Phrases which I don’t understand (and which give me the rage)

[goodly]

‘She was murdered in broad daylight’.
What is ‘broad daylight’? Is it worse than being killed in the middle of the night?

’He was found lying in a pool of his own blood’. Well, he’s not likely to have been found in a pool of someone else’s blood, is he?

Perhaps my perimenopausal diminishing hormones are taking over but phrases like this give me the rage. Any other examples?

Nothing winds me up more than “gifted”.

Given. You were given something.

So Google tells me that Chip on his shoulder derives from 19th century Americanism where men wanting to fight would place a wooden chip on their shoulder and the other had to knock it off to proceed. Who knew?! 😂 😂

Makes sense to me. I mean 200 years ago they were literally putting wooden chips on shoulders and now we say "he's got a chip on his shoulder" for an effectively similar meaning. Holiday away and a few spare minutes has taught me something completely new.

Love this thread by the way!

When someone at work says "Let's create a steering group". Let's fucking not actually. That phrase gives me instant rage.

found lying in a pool of blood - could have been pigs blood from the abbatoir There’s an Agatha Christie novel where this happens…

I have never understood this

I've got mental health....
Good, bad, indifferent???

"It happened for a reason"

Umm.. well of course it did?? Basic physics!

The popular variant means it has become so consistently wrong that it is now the accepted meaning.

‘Enormity’ for instance is now in such common use as an expression of size that its original meaning (something very evil/ bad) is now on the verge of being lost.

’Disinterested’ has become a common synonym for uninterested rather than the original meaning of being unbiased /lacking a stake in the matter which is disappearing

"My fab new bag is vegan leather"

"Oh, you mean it's plastic" 😂

Formerly something akin to seeking an adopted child or trying to mend a deep family rift would be ' reaching out'
Starting a conversation about the filing is now 'reaching out'
Like- thank you for ' reaching out' yes I would like milk in my tea.

Full refund when refund would suffice. Gets on my nerves every time and in my job I see it a lot!

"In broad daylight" implies brazenness on the part of the perpetrator(s), rather than being better or worse than the same thing happening at night.

I have literally never heard 'cheap at twice the price.'
It's clearly now so covert a phrase it doesn't even sound right!

I’m a Brit living in the US and every time I hear “I could care less”, a part of me dies inside.

I’m gradually training DH (American) to refrain from using nonsense phrases like that, but it’s an uphill struggle.

If you think it’s ’thing’, you’ve got another think coming, hopefully.
The phrase is about thoughts, not Amazon parcels.

I always thought it was meant to be
“”cheap at twice the price”

As in, it’s so cheap, if you doubled the price , it would still be cheap.

Or in Belfast, where I live but am not from, I've often heard people say 'fizz' for 'phase, e.g. 'it doesn't fizz him'. An extended version is 'it doesn't fizz on him'.
So odd how these things grow legs, has anyone said that yet? catch on.

FAZE

On American tv -

”my mom and dad are divorcing”

”do you want to talk about it?”

”no, thanks”

aren’t they already talking about it???

It doesn’t FAZE him.

I need to go to bed…

I said to DH not an hour ago that adults using the word 'tummy' makes me cringe

See also ‘toxic’ ‘traumatic’ or ‘narcissistic’

I work with teens
drives me potty!

Oops!
I'm tired and I wanna go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago... (continuing the shark motif.)
No need to shout, though.

Pre-warn.

How do you do that, then?

That’s fair re shouting! Apologies.