Phrases and sayings you just don't understand

[Remieatscake]

Such as:

'Life isn't a bed of roses you know''
Well, yes I think it is really because roses have thorns - the tough bits of life but they also have the beautiful petals of the flower - the good parts of life...overly simplistic but you get my drift.....

''Oh, I slept like a baby'' - surely this is meant to mean I slept badly but people seem to say it wen they have slept well. Not a mum (yet) but I am an overnight nanny amongst other things so know that babies do not generally sleep well!

Will think of some more I'm sure but in the mean time anyone else think of sayings that don't really make sense?

*when

''Oh, I slept like a baby'' - you have no responsibilities or worries, life is unhindered

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle (Theidioms.com)
Kit Marlow, a couple of hundred years ago.

@Isyourgooglebroken-

What do those phrases mean please!

Shit or bust. Surely both are bad?

'Wanting to have your cake and eat it'.

Why would anyone have cake and not eat it?!?

“Get your ducks in a row”

I see it on here all the time and it really, really grates on me. What has preparing to leave your partner got to do with ducks?!

That saying is the one thing about MN that irrationally pisses me off

Ducks in a row - have you never seen a mother duck with her children waddling along in a row behind her? It's an analogy for getting everything in order - neat, ordered rows.

@kitkat95 I think it means you can’t make up your mind to eat the cake, even though you want to, because then, no cake. You want to enjoy the ownership of said cake as well as the pleasure of eating it.

'It'll be in the last place you look.'

Of course it will be because you don't keep fucking looking after you've found what you were looking for!!

I thought 'ducks in a row' was something to do with the shooting range at the fairground because all the tin ducks are sat in row ready for you to shoot.

I never understand 'you can't have your cake and eat it'. What's the point of cake you can't eat?

I am from the UK but my fiance is from a completely different culture and country and some of the sayings I have said, he has seemed so puzzled by which has made me second guess/second think them I suppose

'Wanting to have your cake and eat it too' - people actually argue that is a misquote and it should be said 'you cannot eat your cake and have it too' so you cannot eat your cake and still have it. Have is used to mean keep in this sense. (Listened to a podcast on this recently was really interesting).

I don’t understand when people say ‘fuck that for a game of soldiers’ I’m sure I’ve seen ‘for a pack of biscuits’ as well. Really don’t get it, and the phrase winds me up.

kitkat I used to think that, but apparently it means having (keeping) an uneaten cake.

@BigDamnHero 😂😂

@Boringly - Ha! There would never be uneaten cake at my house :) and I second the question what does ''fxxk that for a game of soldiers'' actually mean? Anyone...

A game of soldiers is fun. Basically the same as fuck that for a lark.

Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll get

I know it’s from a film, but still. Every box of chocolates I’ve had gives you a list somewhere on the box.

Ducks in a row I THINK originates from when almost every household had a set of ceramic ducks on the wall and they were traditionally displayed in a row, which was probably tricky to get right and involved some attention to detail and a good eye. Popular in the fifties and before.

Urban Dictionary says:
*Fuck this for a game of soldiers!
Historically soldiers were notorious for becoming engaged in silly and most times (e.g. the game of the "bisquit") non-sense games to kill the time, practice that over time gave them a poorly credible connotation and stereotype. Hence this old fashioned colloquialism (the original version was Sod this for a game of soldiers) compares the foolishness of a certain action/thing with that of "a game of soldiers"
Man 1: Hey Jim lets swallow as much bleach as possible, just to feel what it feels like.

Man 2:You must have gone bonkers, fuck this for a game of soldiers!*

But I had envisioned someone playing with toy soldiers - something inconsequential and achieving nothing. I was obviously wrong.

“No, you’re alright”.

As in “would you like a cup of tea?” “No, you’re alright”.

Yes, I know I’m alright, but would you like a cup of tea!!!

And “laughing on the other side of your face”.

What, as in the back of your head? 🤯

In Aus. She'll be right mate. Usually stated in a situation when she or anyone most definitely won't be!!!!

I don't understand why the good folk of the USA changed 'I couldn't care less' to 'I could care less'. It makes absolutely zero sense at all.

Pretty sure the ducks in a row refers to a shooting gallery at a fun fair, as a pp has said. You wait till they are lined up and then it is easiest to shoot them down. So if you are getting your ducks in a row, you are arranging things to make whatever you are going to do easiest to manage.

Butter wouldn’t melt....

Wtaf? Someone is so cold that butter wouldn’t melt?