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?

"She's no better than she should be". I love this - it means she is an absolute shameless trollop who has shagged everyone in the vicinity and is also common as muck. However, the accuser, who is asserting her unassailable moral superiority, is pretending to be too kind or polite to say so. See also 'she's a piece of work' - meaning she is the most evil perpetrator of eviltude known to womankind

That's a good one dolly, I've never understood that and looking it up hasn't really helped

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_good_deed_goes_unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished.
Someone I know rented a flat to some young people at a peppercorn rent as she felt the high rents demanded were very unfair on young people and she wanted to help.
The tenants repaid her kindness by leaving the flat in a terrible state and breaking stuff etc.

When I was very young adults regularly threatened "I'll show you the back of my hand." Why was that scary?

I love phraseologisms - and the way different languages express the same basic idea:
the "fur coat" saying would be - "keine Socken aber weiße Gamaschen" (no socks but white spats)
and the "gift horse" would be" 'nem geschenkten Gaul schaut man nicht in's Maul" with an additional sound effect.
I'll show you the back of my hand = I'll give you a slap around the face = in German "schau meine Hand an" (come have a look at my hand)

I will tak ma haun aff yer face or in English "i will take my hand off your face" used to make me howl with laughter when my lovely wee coal miners wife Nana used to holler this at my sister, it means slap your face

I know 'dogs bollocks ' means good, but why?

And wtaf is 'baited breath '??
I'm imagining a fish dangling from your nose 😂😂😂

It’s ‘bated breath’, to hold your breath, same root as abate.

'Like butter wouldn't melt'

To me that means very cold - butter wouldn't melt if it was very cold

But apparently it means sweet/kind? Why?!

My inlaws use the phrase "A blind man on a horse couldn't see that!" to indicate something that's really, really obvious.....surely they've got it wrong and it must be "a blind man on a horse could see that"?!!! (No offence intended to horses or visually impaired people!!)

I've never understood when people ask 'how many beans make five'. Isn't it 5, so why are you asking?

I know 'dogs bollocks ' means good, but why
I always assumed that it was because the dog spent so much time licking them that they must be the best thing.

Has anyone mentioned blood is thicker than water? Hate, hate hate it.

Also hate American talk shows where they say it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

‘ I’ll show you the back of my hand’ means ‘I will hit you’. A phrase I often heard growing up and yes it was scary as my mum often followed through on the threat.

The one I hate (and happily only ever encounter on MN) is ‘I’ll tear you/them/it a new one’. It really annoys me as if you did make an extra fissure in a body it wouldn’t be a ‘new’ version of any existing aperture but a completely separate wound. It also annoys me as it is such a meaningless threat rather like when people say something like “it had better not rain on the day of my BBQ’ as if they had the power to sanction the weather gods if they are inconvenienced!

an absolute shameless trollop who has shagged everyone in the vicinity and is also common as muck.

I can’t imagine that’s what my grandmother’s in-laws were thinking of her back in 1944 when she married my grandpa in the forces... i think they imagined she was not a virgin having lived away from home with the forces, but I can’t believe anyone thinking the above about her!

Butter wouldn’t melt... see page 2 ish

"It's always darkest just before dawn".

It isn't! Surely it's always darkest furthest from dawn i.e. in the middle of the night.

I know what is meant to signify, that things seem at their worst just before they start to get better, but the inaccuracy if it annoys me.

"And wtaf is 'baited breath '??
I'm imagining a fish dangling from your nose"

Proof that spelling DOES matter

It's from "abate" - to hold back, lessen, diminish

Another Shakespearean one I believe, merchant of Venice?

Means someone held their breath in anxiety awaiting a shocking or fearful event.

Shadowhuntress its a shortened misquoted version of 'the blood.of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'

Either way, its still pants

A modern phrase that took me a while to get.. which is to do with messages on Instagram.
"Sliding into your DMs like..."
If you were a 90s teenager like myself you could take it to mean something completely different as DMs in the 90s were the abbreviation for Dr Martens boots which is what I thought it actually meant to begin with!
Basically any of those phrases you see on bits of painted wood get me thinking 'what the hell!'
Two particular ones that I really don't get...
"I love you to the moon and back"...erm considering the moon orbits the earth and is the nearest planet(is it a planet?) that's not very far at all is it? If you said Neptune or Pluto and back then fair enough, but...!

"It's not about waiting for the storm to pass it's about dancing in the rain.."
ok then you'll get bloody soaked then.

Motivational phrases are the worst though.
I just want to whip out a sharpie everytime I see one and write "Citation needed"!

Honeylulu - I think it is true that the last half hour or so before dawn is the darkest point of the night. I have no idea why but it’s certainly been my observation over the years. Midnight or 2am is often lighter than later on in the night (say 4.30am or whatever is just before sunrise).

If such and such is true ‘ i’ll eat hay with a horse’. No you won’t!

Honeylulu - I think it is true that the last half hour or so before dawn is the darkest point of the night. I have no idea why but it’s certainly been my observation over the years

Wow, I am really surprised. I shall have to stay up one night and observe this phenomenon. Thank you! I'd love to know how it works add its the opposite if what I thought.

Also hate American talk shows where they say it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve

Can you explain that one, I've no idea what that means, who are Adam and Steve?

Darkest before dawn means that it's darkest before it starts to get light doesn't it rather than actual dawn, that's what I've taken it to be anyway