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 think a 'Nonce' meant 'silly person' or 'idiot'...found out the hard way what the true meaning was when I called a colleague Nonce 🤣🤣🤣

Ouch 😳

My parents often used to say that something was " cheap at half the price". Well of course it was . What a bonkers saying. Even now I don't really get it.

I'm afraid so. It's high-per-boll-ai, with the stress on the per. Not something you could work out without hearing it said, I'd say!

This is the best definition I've ever been given. But how would you use it in a sentence? Is it something people actually say or is archaic? Thanks!

My colleague who isn't a native speaker recently expressed frustration at our use of the word 'put'.
Put on your coat; Put out the bins. Fair enough. However we also put on a kettle or put out a fire. (We never put off a kettle)
To be put out is to be irritated or insulted
To put up with means to tolerate
We put on a show/ performance, but if someone is putting it on they are being fake
The same word applies to golfing

I think you're thinking of 'translucent'

transparent = you can properly see through it, like glass
translucent = you can see light through it, and maybe shapes, but can't make anything out clearly, like frosted glass
opaque = not even light can get through it

Yes, but the frosted glass in bathroom windows used to be called opaque, which has buggered up many a science lesson for me.

The prodigal son is the golden boy in my family. Sadly.

This confuses me as well. I always thought it meant really embarrassed.

Yes it looks like I thought opaque was the same/similar to translucent. You learn something new every day 😁

It's a joke. I say it a lot, usually to DP about something I don't really need that I've splurged on and he's rolling his eyes about. 'I couldn't resist, 40 quid, cheap at half the price!'

The proper saying is cheap at twice the price.

Well it was a long time ago now. It may have been the regulator rather than my employer that needed to see it (I’m Scottish qualified). But I definitely remember that the training contract registration/admission as a solicitor/issue of first practising certificate was all done via my firm and i needed to provide my transcript. I could NOT find it anywhere and had to ask the university to reissue. The reason is that to be admitted as a solicitor (in Scotland) you need to have passed certain mandatory courses (I.e criminal law, contract law etc) and they need to check that you have.

Also why would I make this up?!

It does. So embarrassed you want to die. Mort = death

No need to put off a kettle, it puts itself off when it's boiled!

No idea! Ive just never heard of it that's all. Just interested.

When I was at uni I can remember one of our friends trying to explain to a German student that describing something as "bollocks" meant it was really bad but calling something "the bollocks" meant it was really good. Fair to say he was rightly confused.

Also just remembered as a child I thought worthless and priceless meant the same thing. Because if something didn't have a price it must mean no one thought it worth buying. But, no.

I've also recently come across someone who was adamant that a "showstopper" was a disaster rather than an amazing part of an event.

Do mansplainers use logical phalluses? 🤔

Spendthrift definitely sounds like it could be short for, spend thriftily, as opposed to spend with reckless abandon. Fritterthrift!
A quick tweak to the friend indeed one would leave no room for ambiguity: a friend enduring/throughout/despite your need is a friend indeed.

Lots of people say that, it's just a jokey way of saying cheap at twice the price

Modern electric kettle do......
But that is a relatively recent development, they are also turned on rather on put (e.g. onto the stove) these days but put on persists as a phrase.
In our house the response to 'put the kettle on' is 'It won't fit me'.

I was browsing Facebook marketplace recently.... someone was selling a Chester drawers!! 😜

I also used the expression " fly by night" at work recently, my younger colleagues didn't have a clue what I was on about!

I

They both have thrift in, but one also has spend!...I assumed it meant being thrifty with your spend,ie not spending much because you were being thrifty iyswim.

@Anxietybummer It’s a bit confusing in the OP but she has explained her interpretation twice without explaining what a spendthrift is. On first reading it looks as if OP if providing a definition and her interpretation, but she isn’t
I'm sorry that I did not put the actually definition in the original post, but that is because I erroneously thought that everyone else in the world knew the real definition so it wouldn't be necessary.

I burst out laughing at this one. Sitting in a park with your friends on a hot summers day, having a few beers, throwing around a Frisbee and yerone says "jaysis lads, its baltic"

Its one of those words like temper whe9re the meaning has changed. To lose your temper originally meant to lose control, let go of the brakes... temper being the thing that moderates your emotions, originally. ( still used in, eg, temper your enthusiasm)

But now temper means the thing the word originally was trying to moderate ie the anger, the emotion.