To have completely misunderstood the meaning of some sayings?

[KermitTheToad]

I only found out today that the term Social Butterfly refers to someone who is outgoing and loves social events. I thought it meant you didn't like social events, as in you would fly away and avoid them. I also until recently thought that a Spendthrift is somebody who is frugal in their spending. I assumed that as thrifty meant not being wasteful, that Spendthrift meant being careful in what you spent.
YANBU..I see where you are coming from.
YABU.. You are a wally, go back to school!

I used to pronounce archipelago as arr...chip..a..lago and its still hard to stop myself.

Renders the term 'thrift store' pretty silly, thinking about it

I remember singing along to Message in a Bottle back in the day, naively thinking that Sting was sending an SOS to the moon.
It wasn't until years later that the futility of sending an SOS to the moon dawned on me.

Such a fun thread!

I was a bookworm (there is another one!) as a child so mispronounced words in my head that I hadn't heard out loud.

Jodhpurs became jod hoppers
Pneumonia Penohmonia

I still read computer outage as computer outrage.

À great reference book for all this is Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Fascinating!

i thought making ends meet ...was making ends meat - a type of meat you have to make yourself at home if you cant afford meat because you dont have any money at that time...

i also thought 'being bawdy' was just having a laugh.. didn't realise it had a sexual connotation until my husband told me and now i have years of professional mortification from using that saying far to liberally in the past...

That is the usual interpretation - Jesus is teaching about the Kingdom of God. The son is no golden child - he is a disgrace, shockingly demanded his inheritance before his father had died, wasted it all, and (to a Jewish audience) debased himself by working with pigs. He came back hoping he could beg a place as a servant, and the father (representing God in this parable) runs to him - such love! - and rejoices that he's come back!

"There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who do not need to repent." Some people don't like it, but that is the Christian message, that God is willing and able to forgive people: no-one is beyond being accepted into Heaven if they truly ask for forgiveness.

Well I totally misunderstood the word "prodigal." I thought it meant something akin to genius, as in the expression "child prodigy."

So every time DS1 came home from uni and I exclaimed "prodigal son returns!" I was actually insulting him.

At some point during my secondary school years I said the word decipher. People fell about laughing. I'd never heard it pronounced or had occasion to say it before and I pronounced it dessyfer.

Does it? Thrifty people are keen to avoid spending money unnecessarily and if they can do it on a large enough scale they will thrive. The thrift shop aims to help them on their way.

Interesting! She is a Londoner, but has confirmed she definitely says "Looks like a bomb's hit it"!

People use the phrase in a joking way but probably thinking it has the sense of "wandering far away" - eg mothers use it to gently have a dig at a son who has been away for months and never phones or writes (I suspect my mum used of it me in my student days, long before mobiles were a thing).

I've not come across anyone thinking it referred to prodigies.

I thought exactly the same!!! I think I was inspired by the word "ministries" and "ministers"- like, the programme was ministering its meaning to us

Well I'd still be pissed off if I were one of the other sons watching the carry on with the prodigal one.

100% right, and very well explained. The American version means the opposite of what the phrase is intended to convey and is therefore incorrect. It is not a case of it being an alternative meaning, it is simply wrong.

And those of us who understand this phrase also know exactly what you intended to write @diddl 😁

Jesus says in the parable that the older brother was pissed off, and it's a dig at the self-righteous Pharisees etc who thought they were so good and had kept all the rules, and couldn't accept that God would graciously forgive people who fell short. I guess from other teachings in the New Testament, Jesus would want them to know that actually all people fall short, so we all need this kind of extravagant, undeserved forgiveness.

It doesn't work so well in the real world though.

Well, some of us believe that God is part of the real world, so it works for me. Also, plenty of people (some of them out of Christian faith) have set examples of forgiving those who have harmed them. Closer to home, like most parents I am sure, I would go on loving my children and wanting to have a relationship with them even if they did do something terrible.

I think the story is slightly immoral. The ones that worked hard, did the right thing, supported their father and didn't fritter away their inheritance were overlooked in favour of a feckless son who buggered off having done nothing to contribute to the family. The lesson there is that you dont need to do the right thing.

I know forgiveness is divine. But there is such a thing as being a bit of a doormat. You can have a relationship with your feckless child and love them just as much of course but not at the expense of the child that worked hard and did the right thing. Bad parenting.

Anyway that's my view on that story.

I know. I was just explaining why it's so easily misnderstood - as evidenced by the many conflicting comments on here.

But that person (the non fair weather friend) is the 'friend indeed'

And I am the 'friend in need'

But the phrase has the 2 people as the same person, the friend in need is also the friend indeed

Im not getting how this makes sense

No, it's the same friend being referenced both times - "your friend who sticks around in a time of (your) need is indeed your true friend".

Did you ever watch any bi-opics about famous people? I just watched the Bruce Springsteen one. 😆

I KNOW!!!
I know its 'looks like a bomb's hit it'

But over the years, in our family and neighbours/friends its turned into a descriptor of its own 'bomsisit'

Thats a right bomsisit. Its a bomsitit in here

Apologies if repetition but the phrase should be 'damp squib' for ex a firework that doesn't go off with a big explosion, just a few pathetic sparks. Or a much touted event that flops. A squib is an explosive device or firework.