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Original poster

Phrases and sayings you just don't understand

415 replies

Remieatscake · 01/05/2019 10:28

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?

OP posts:
Seapoint2002 · 01/05/2019 11:18

'Slept like a baby' for me is about sleeping without a care in the world and no stresses.
'Life isn't a bed of roses' is saying life isn't all good like lying on a bed of rose petals as in when a romantic partner covers your bed in them and life is all perfect.

ReganSomerset · 01/05/2019 11:19

one that's always puzzled me is "She's no better than she should be"

I've never heard this but I'd hazard a guess that it means she does the bare minimum.

crazypsychedelictrifle · 01/05/2019 11:20

"Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs"

Errr what?

Whatistheworldcominto · 01/05/2019 11:20

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've said this for years back to people who say it to me! maybe without swearing if it's at work 😂

A friend in need is a friend indeed” Why is a friend better because they need something?

"No, it means 'a friend when you are in need' - the person who stands by you when you really need help.*

I'm so cynical. I thought it meant that a friend who needs your help will be a good friend 'indeed' while they need that help. As possibly a warning against a user 🤦

One my nan used to say "I'll have your eye in a sling" when we'd been naughty as kids.
And "Give your eye teeth" for something very desirable, indicating eye teeth are really, really important. Who the fuck wants teeth in their eyes?
She had several little sayings, I'll probably think of more.

SnakesBarmitzvah · 01/05/2019 11:22

Some of these are really obvious Confused

JassyRadlett · 01/05/2019 11:22

She'll be right mate.

It’s just ‘don’t stress, everything will be ok’. Confused

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

It’s ‘all show/presentation with no underpinnings/foundation’. All surface, nothing underneath.

downcasteyes · 01/05/2019 11:23

Your eye teeth are your canines, aren't they? The pointy ones to either side of your front teeth? I always assumed they were valuable because prominent and highly visible/useful??

DontMakeMeShushYou · 01/05/2019 11:23

“all fur coat and nae knickers” refers to choosing to buy luxuries but then being unable to afford the basics

It definitely doesn't mean that. It means what Littlecaf said - outwardly classy but totally common underneath.

SnakesBarmitzvah · 01/05/2019 11:23

It'll be in the last place you look.

I think the saying is “It'll be in the last place you’d look.'

As in, the least obvious place.

Onecutefox · 01/05/2019 11:23

Re: to have a cake and eat it. Means you want to eat a cake and still have it. Usually it's for CFs.

SnakesBarmitzvah · 01/05/2019 11:24

Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs

You’ve added the part with the grandmother, that’s not part of the saying. Must just be context you heard it

TheMuminator2 · 01/05/2019 11:25

'In the fullness of time' cant stand this phrase said by some smug git who thinks they know what will be coming your way

ie. in the fullness of time you will have to....blah blah yeah right

NameChangeSameRage · 01/05/2019 11:26

*'Wanting to have your cake and eat it'.

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

This is the wrong way around. It's eat your cake and have it- i.e you can not have something both ways.

Fuckedoffat48b · 01/05/2019 11:28

'It's not about you.' When somebody has just suffered a personal attack of some kind.

DontMakeMeShushYou · 01/05/2019 11:28

Common as muck....another one!

Muck = horse shit. Because in the days before motorised transport horse drawn was the common mode of transport and it would be difficult to go outside and not find muck.

Onecutefox · 01/05/2019 11:28

Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs

It's like the chick shouldn't teach the chicken.

JassyRadlett · 01/05/2019 11:28

You’ve added the part with the grandmother, that’s not part of the saying. Must just be context you heard it

I’ve never heard it without grandmother, in several anglophone countries.

gowgow · 01/05/2019 11:28

Now we're sucking diesel. WTF?

downcasteyes · 01/05/2019 11:30

What? The saying is definitely "Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs". The point is that you're trying to tell someone with loads of worldly experience how to do something they've been doing for ages. So if you are an expert mechanic, and I haven't even ever changed a tyre, but I give you a long lecture on your job, then it's like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs. It's like a non-gendered version of mansplaining!

Ellisandra · 01/05/2019 11:31

Ha!
All my life I have interpreted “friend in need is a friend indeed” wrong!

I must be a cynical old witch...

I always thought it meant, someone else who is in need, will certainly (indeed) cosy up and be a ‘friend’ to you, because they want something Grin

Which makes perfect sense from an English point of view, but does suggest a terribly pessimistic outlook from me Blush

MrsMaisel · 01/05/2019 11:32

No the saying is 'teaching your grandmother to suck eggs'.

In your grandmother's day (well, perhaps great grandmother) they did this. Sit with the chickens, poke holes in either end of an egg and suck out the inside.

If someone is 'teaching their grandmother to suck eggs', they're embarrassing themselves by making out they know something about a subject the other person is an expert in.

TheInebriati · 01/05/2019 11:33

''Money can't buy everything''. Did anyone say it could?

Littlecaf · 01/05/2019 11:33

Oooh I love that there are several understandings of some of the phrases! I think they are all right ..... language and literature changes over time so some meanings will evolve, yes?

QueenKubauOfKish · 01/05/2019 11:34

"She's no better than she should be"

I've never heard this but I'd hazard a guess that it means she does the bare minimum.

People seem to say it disapprovingly about someone promiscuous.

BlueGlassesFrames · 01/05/2019 11:34

We've always used no better than she ought to be to mean she's common. I think it means someone's nature is to be such and such and they're not putting any effort in to be "better" (to whatever given standard) than that, but I'd love to find out a different origin.