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?

@lookingelsewhere - thank you....

'Just a cotton picking minute'' another one with a horrible history that I didn't know until recently

The dyke story makes no sense, though. As it was told to me as a kid, the boy is supposed to be a hero for plugging the dyke with his finger and waiting there all night, thus saving the city from flooding. (As water engineers might point out, the science here may be a bit dubious - bloody sentimental Victorians!). Pulling his finger out would have been a bad thing to do, within the confines of the story. Whereas in the saying "Get your finger out" it's definitely A Good Thing.

When a famous person dies from an overdose and it's reported that "they choked on their own vomit". Well, who else's vomit would they choke on?????

Thank fuck for that, Tigh. I've mentioned the absurdity of this to a few people over the years, and they've all looked at me as though I'm nuts.

It's truly a relief to find that I am not alone in finding this turn of phrase baffling.

The phrases 'fill your boots' and 'knock yourself out ' both really annoy me.

"I'm not as green as I'm cabbage-looking" I am pretty sure it means "I am not naive" but I don't really get the phrase itself.

Re She's no better than she ought to be/should be, I understand the meaning as in what it's used for, but I still don't understand the "should be" bit really. It kind of suggests all woman (or maybe all "common" women?) default to a state of being promiscuous unless they make more of an effort?

With the vomit, it's always made sense to me in that what it's emphasising is that they choke on something from themselves IYSWIM. You wouldn't choke on someone else's vomit (I hope...) but you'd typically choke on something external to/from outside yourself, like a sandwich or something.

I have always took the saying about someone as looking like butter wouldn’t melt to mean they look all sweetness and light. Yet this wouldn’t fit with the meaning given earlier on this thread of someone appearing v cool, calm and collected?

Severely intoxicated from alcohol, to the point of finding control of one's actions or coordination difficult. Taken most likely from nautical terminology, where a "sheet" is the rope that controls the sails of a tall ship; if several sheets are loose or mishandled, the boat's movement becomes unsteady and difficult to control, like that of a drunk person.

Perfect explanation!

An awful lot of English sayings have their origins in seafaring, eg, freezing the balls off a brass monkey, copper-bottomed, hand over fist, tiding over.

My late father (ex-RN) used to come out with all sorts.

I think a lot of the phrases that don't make sense today are misquoted or outdated. God knows why people still say them though 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, for example ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ was from the days when getting divorced was extremely difficult and frowned upon. Now it’s more like ‘marry at leisure, repent in haste’.

"I love you to the moon and back"

Does that mean all those astronauts only love their wives when they are in transit to/from the moon?

Because we still use the expression but no longer use proof to mean test, the meaning of the expression has become twisted around so somehow we think that it means the exception demonstrates the rule, which of course is confusing.

That’s such an interesting example of language changing making meaning change.

My Nan, when referring to something that happened a long time ago, used to say "back when flies wore overcoats". Have never heard it from anyone else and no idea why flies were wearing overcoats! I miss her.

The origins of "Going Postal" are also pretty morbid- it refers to an American postal worker who committed a mass shooting at his workplace.

"Knee high to a grasshopper" also makes no sense when you think about it- but I suppose it refers to being so small you're insignificant.

I've always thought when talking about swings and roundabouts means you can only go so far before you get back to the start
So no matter how high you swing or how many times you go round you will always pass / go back to the start
No matter what you do it will always be the same result.

To the pp who mentioned the 'proof of the pudding' the original saying was: 'the proof of the pudding is in the eat'. In other words you can't take things on face value, until you've tasted the 'pudding' you won't know if it's any good.

Sorry, that should be 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' not in the eat, which definitely makes no sense.

"You have to fight fire with fire"

Really, that's good to know. Now on a totally unrelated subject, run by me again how you came to be sacked from the fire brigade? I suppose turning up to that blaze and applying a blow torch to it might have been a factor in their decision to let you go.

"Well, I'll go to the foot of my stairs..."

What?? Why??

A rule is something that usually happens. Let's say as a rule I go to church every Sunday. When I broke my leg and didn't go that was the exception that proved that this was a rule. If there was no exceptions to something it would be a law that it happened not merely a general rule.

Queenofmyownheart: There used to be advice to women to "keep your hand on your ha'penny" when heading out on a date to avoid becoming pregnant...I wonder if that is distantly related, in a joking "don't do anything I wouldn't do" way?

Heard the very sad story of 'sweet Fanny Adams' before, and I did always think 'tilting at windmills' was an allusion to Don Quixote. Didn't know the origins of the 'ducks in a row' one though: that's really interesting!

I like that other old nautical one: 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'. Brass trays called monkeys are a weird one for me - much less storing canon balls in them - but the saying does make a lot more sense in that context! (I.e. why do brass monkeys have bollocks)?

I'd always understood 'no better than she should be' as being a woman of sexually questionable morals. But even with the knowledge of what it means in context, it still makes no linguistic sense to me whatsoever!

The observation of either 'shit or bust' both being bad has really tickled me. A favourite of mine is 'shit, or get off the pot' - even though its meaning is totally transparent.

Really enjoying this thread!

'Blood is thicker than water' could easily be countered thus:

'porridge is thicker than blood. Does that mean I can prioritize getting my oats over dealing with an infuriating family member?'

The saying makes no sense without the rest: 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'. But in view of the above, maybe in future I'll stick to the misquote!

I don't know this for a fact, but do you suppose fighting fire with fire doesn't refer to flames, but firing guns? So if you are facing an enemy who is firing a gun at you, you would have to fire a gun back at them, you wouldn't get far advancing on them with a knife or a sword? Just a thought.