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?

i thought ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ was also used for people who look really innocent/angelic but are the opposite.

Used to hear ‘who’s she, the cats mother’ a lot & an aunt would say cats manacky (?), wtf is a manacky?

Heads up means giving you a better view of the situation. Like if someone were to give you a head above a wall (an uppy so you could see over) to see what was behind it.

If anyone can explain Doodlleaally/doolally I'd be much obliged.

RULE OF THUMB
As the myth goes, "rule of thumb" relates to a British law, allowing a husband to beat his wife with a stick, as long as it isn't wider than the man's thumb.

Heard it recently in The Widow series on Netflix. Kate beckingsdale has a good comeback to her colleague and explains the origin.

In another movie i hear gilding the lilly...now it was quite a raunchy film from the 00s and I got confused and thought it had a rude meaning..I got it muddled up with 'tipping the velvet' lol

early 20th century: originally doolally tap, Indian army slang, from Deolali (the name of a town with a military sanatorium and a transit camp) + Urdu tap ‘fever’.
Doolally comes from British army slang, originating when Deolali was a British army transit camp in India. Doolally tap meant being mad, crazy or literally, suffering from camp fever. Tap in English is malarial fever, from the Hindi for fever.

How interesting who knew

Had “hoisted by his own petard” been on yet? (If that’s the right spelling!)

'the long and short of it is...'

butter wouldnt melt both meanings apparently have some truth to them

www.saywhydoi.com/why-do-we-say-butter-wouldn%E2%80%99t-melt-in-his-mouth/

Those of you talking about the Trojan horse, there's another proverb from that — beware of Greeks bearing gifts!

I almost chose to do something very similar to this for my dissertation but went another way in the end.

Idioms are so culturally defining and totally fascinating to me.

As an army brat I also found for some the meanings changed even within the uk.

My understanding of "all fur coat and no knickers" is someone who is more concerned with outward appearance rather than ensuring they have their basic needs covered, valuing appearance over necessity.

Loving this thread

It's hoist not hoisted.

It's hoist not hoisted

The exact phrase from Hamlet is "Hoist with his own petard" but "hoisted with" / "hoisted by" are both common usage and make no difference to the meaning.

Although "thrown" would make more sense than hoist nowadays. I suspect a lot of people think (like I did, before I knew what a petard was) it's to do with hanging — with the word hoist, and maybe confusion with giving somebody enough rope to hang themselves.

"Cheap at half the price"

I've always heard it as cheap at twice the price.

"Cheap at half the price"

I've always heard it as cheap at twice the price

They are 2 different phases. "Cheap at half the price" is a play on "cheap at twice the price"

'Not enough room to swing a cat'. I always had visions of swinging a cat round by its tail .

Instead , apparently it refers to a space on a sailing ship which was not big enough to use a whip ( or catstail)when lashing sailors as punishment. So.became a description or a very small.space

If you eat your cake, you no longer have it in your possession. The saying means not being able.to do or experience two mutually exclusive things.

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.

The other day I heard a new one, twice in the same show, "Day of light" instead of "light of day" as in, "he should be in prison and never see the day of light again"

You can't prove the soundness of a rule by citing an example where the rule doesn't work. Multiple exceptions to a rule generally prove nothing except that the rule is a bit shit.

Yes you can. My understanding ios if you saw a sign that says, "no parking except on Sundays"

The general rule is 'no parking' but the exception is, 'on Sunday', this exception proves the rule that you cannot park any other time.

Horses for courses

Wtf does that phrase mean

It means just that, a horse that is good for a steeple chase is not good on a flat course. So you pick the correct horse to run on the correct race course.

I don’t really understand the “all fur coat and nae knickers” one, though I pretend I do

There is also, "brown boots and no breakfast" they mean the same, people who pretend to have the best but it is all on the surface, they have gone without the basics to have the flash or showy thing.

I'm totally Bamboozled after reading all this

Turns out I know nowt

Used to hear ‘who’s she, the cats mother’ a lot & an aunt would say cats manacky (?), wtf is a manacky?

^^

You mean manky? As in a bit dirty, scruffy?

If my mother in law was asked where she was going she used to say "There and back to see how far it is"

I was always a bit puzzled.

You mean manky? As in a bit dirty, scruffy

No definitely manacky or similar.y aunt wouldn’t use the word manky

I've never understood more haste, less speed.

Because I always thought being hasty was being quick.

''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.

I think it was Denis Thatcher who answered an interviewer's question about how he slept with, "I sleep like a baby: I keep waking up screaming and wetting the bed."

ed 01-May-19 11:23:30
It'll be in the last place you look

I always thought this meant that once you find it you will stop looking. So it's always in the last place you look. People say it trying to be funny unhelpful

More haste less speed means that if you do something in a hasty manner you are more likely to make a mistake or do it wrong leading to you having to do it again or correct a mistake and therefore less speedy overall.