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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

“Thrown under a bus”

90 replies

backinthebox · 22/10/2020 14:32

Aargh! As a phrase it sets my teeth on edge and it’s being used everywhere about everything atm. By my reckoning having done a quick search here, about 99.99% of the country have been thrown under a bus recently. Just stop it! No one has actually been thrown under an actual bus. Think of some different words to use.

OP posts:
Antibles · 22/10/2020 17:03

@LouiseTrees

Just going to point out, there was a story last year about a runner actually throwing someone under a bus.
That was horrible - the runner who shoved a woman as he ran past her on a bridge? Luckily the bus driver swerved and just avoided her. Awful. I don't think the assailant was ever caught.
multivac · 22/10/2020 17:07

"Livid" is another one almost everybody (not just mumsnetters) gets wrong. It means a bluish grey colour, but the phrase "livid with rage" got everybody confused and now "livid" is understood to mean "really cross".

I hate to break it to you - but this is how language works. If everyone now understands 'livid' to mean 'really cross'... then that's what it means, and people aren't 'getting it wrong'. I'm as big a fan of etymology as the next person (and that's Suzy Dent, ideally); but I'm afraid we don't get to decide at what point to freeze it.

ShebaShimmyShake · 22/10/2020 17:09

@multivac

"Livid" is another one almost everybody (not just mumsnetters) gets wrong. It means a bluish grey colour, but the phrase "livid with rage" got everybody confused and now "livid" is understood to mean "really cross".

I hate to break it to you - but this is how language works. If everyone now understands 'livid' to mean 'really cross'... then that's what it means, and people aren't 'getting it wrong'. I'm as big a fan of etymology as the next person (and that's Suzy Dent, ideally); but I'm afraid we don't get to decide at what point to freeze it.

Yep, I agree. A toilet was a drape originally.

Language evolves. Anyone who doesn't understand that doesn't understand how it works.

nosswith · 22/10/2020 17:10

It's an overused expression.

myhobbyisouting · 22/10/2020 17:13

Please stop saying "sets my teeth on edge"

It's horrid

Love51 · 22/10/2020 17:13

I'd rather be thrown under a bus than sold down the river 🤷

SoPanny · 22/10/2020 17:14

@Coquohvan

Perhaps people are getting fed up with a lot of things and phrases seem to be one of them. A few I’ve noticed being said time and again - Let me be clear Novel Virus For the avoidance of doubt I totally understand I make no apologies Unprecedented times etc etc etc
Aw mate, you’ve just killed all the lawyers on this forum who rely on “for the avoidance of doubt” to basically get away with making really rash statements sound like logical fact

buzzkill

unmarkedbythat · 22/10/2020 17:16

I love these threads, I have already learned the origin of a phrase I was previously totally ignorant of :)

However, people insisting that everyone uses a phrase to mean x when it means y are wrong... surely once the phrase is widely understood to mean x, it's as valid a meaning as y?

BritWifeinUSA · 22/10/2020 17:18

I’m seeing/hearing it a lot on UK-based forums and groups lately. It means something different here so I find it somewhat amusing to see the way it’s being used in the UK now. Language changes...

Devlesko · 22/10/2020 17:20

Busses, Wolves, we should be more careful with our society or we won't be allowed to have one. Oh, wait.....

Devlesko · 22/10/2020 17:21

ooh, what does it mean in the USA?

thedancingbear · 22/10/2020 17:21

I hate this ridiculous and unnecessary 'metaphors'. Why can't people just use words that mean what they say?

it really boils my piss.

Orangeblossom7777 · 22/10/2020 17:22

I really don't like the one on here "Give your head a wobble" It just sounds so sort of, pathetic

ShebaShimmyShake · 22/10/2020 17:26

@Orangeblossom7777

I really don't like the one on here "Give your head a wobble" It just sounds so sort of, pathetic
I think that one is regional, along with "wind your neck in". I might be wrong.
ShebaShimmyShake · 22/10/2020 17:27

@Love51

I'd rather be thrown under a bus than sold down the river 🤷
I think I'd rather be sold to Chris Hemsworth
MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 22/10/2020 17:29

@EmilySpinach

Have your biscuit back, *@MissLucyEyelesbarrow*. Broad hyperbole is not the same as a reference to a specific incident. It would be more comparable to say that a person who was angry had 'gone totally Columbine', or that a violent person had 'done a Dunblane'. Can you see the difference between the phrase 'train wreck' and saying something like 'it's all gone a bit Potters Bar'?

I don't think it's sanctimonious to think that all of those examples would be pretty crass. I'm not aware of any other idioms in common use which are directly taken from an individual atrocity or disaster in recent history. I'll be happy to be corrected.

I wouldn't reference Dunblane as an idiom on MN because there is a reasonable chance that someone affected by it is reading. There is fuck-all chance that a survivor of a South American mass suicide event in 1978 is browsing AIBU.

I don't believe for a moment that you or any other poster is actually offended by references to an event that happened 40 years ago, 5,000 miles away. You're just virtue-signalling. Which is rather tedious.

Saucery · 22/10/2020 17:34

Drinking the Kool Aid refers more to the brainwashing process that led to the group agreeing to do so.
It’s a bit like “going postal” for mass shootings, as the original spate of those in the US was committed by disgruntled postal workers.

Velvian · 22/10/2020 17:36

I absolutely hate, "any way shape or form" too. I have a friend that says that all the time. She also says "spitting feathers" (thirsty) to refer to someone being angry, when she means "spitting tacks".

BlackForestCake · 22/10/2020 17:40

These expressions generally disappear again as quickly as they appeared. A couple of years ago everything had to get in the sea, but now nothing needs to get in the sea. Whatever it meant.

romeolovedjulliet · 22/10/2020 17:40

suck it up, a straw ? broken ? use some glue shaking, wailing, sobbing, meltdown, all bloody awful and more besides.

WagnersFourthSymphony · 22/10/2020 17:40

WRT to the tastelessness or otherwise of drinking the Kool-Aid, don't forget that people talk of someone 'going postal'.

I'll just let that stick to the wall for now.

Staffy1 · 22/10/2020 17:43

When I used to watch Eastenders many years ago, the phrase which got my goat (no doubt "got my goat" will get other people's goats) was "a fresh start". People were having fresh starts every week. Don't know if they still are.

Saucery · 22/10/2020 17:45

@WagnersFourthSymphony

WRT to the tastelessness or otherwise of drinking the Kool-Aid, don't forget that people talk of someone 'going postal'.

I'll just let that stick to the wall for now.

But even St Terry Of Pratchett used that as a book title Wink
daisychain01 · 22/10/2020 17:50

@NastyBlouse

I remember when 'hill to die on' was briefly in vogue around these parts. Never liked that one.
Definitely not something to die in a ditch over. Grin
quiteathome · 22/10/2020 17:53

For some reason I don't like 'vanishingly small'