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!

It means you'll only know if something has worked or what the experience is, once its done/experienced/finished

Its like saying 'will this come to pass' or 'will this work or come good'.

FEED ME SEYMOUR!! 🪴

I was 30 before I ever heard the phrase 'Coals to Newcastle' and hadn't a clue what it meant. My husband explained it to me.

I also thought that “diamond in the rough” meant a bright, shining diamond (ie a person) surrounded by “rough”. A bit like finding a diamond in a mine of dirt. So if someone was a diamond in the rough, I thought they were a great person surrounded by dire people.

Supposedly it’s talking about the diamond itself. Like it’s rough cut but needs buffing. So you’re actually saying they have potential, but aren’t quite brilliantly shiny yet.

What age are you? Hyperbole is very much spoken about in KS4 English Language.

I use hyperbole a lot. And thats hyperbole

What about busman's holiday?

Thanks @WarrenTofficier- I’ll stand my ground with stocky!

@Plusplugthats a good example as I always thought of this saying from the sarcastic angle. Marty McFly says it to Jennifer when he gets back from 1955 and I wondered why she didn’t take offence!

Once got into a huge argument, which resulted in him storming out of the house, with my ex, who was insisting that "droll" was just another word for "dull".

Damp squid comes from the IT Crowd. Roy mistakenly thinks the phrase is ‘damp squid’ not ‘squib’

You will only know if you proved your bread for the right amount of time when you taste it.

You will only know if you made the right choice / took the right course of action after the event.

Were you thinking of pretentious and pompous and sort of mashing them up?

Its much older than that, people have been getting phrases wrong like that for eons.

Pusillanimous sounds like it should mean scrappy and ready to fight to me

Hyper bowl (hyperbole) and Percy Phone (Persephone) are classics in secondary school. 😁

Thats what I said!!!

But spendthrift comes from the word thrifty which means careful with money so its meaning should be quite clear 🤷‍♀️

For years I thought inflammable was the opposite of flammable. I would buy eg children's dressing-up clothes marked inflammable because I thought that was a good thing!

Thought the same

Oh I getcha @KermitTheToad 😆 Spendthrift is a bit confusing isn't it? I did know social butterfly meant very sociable though!

And yeah, tell, dark, and handsome means a man who has dark hair, and is tall and handsome. It's never meant a non-white man I don't think.

Some funny posts on here. Thanks for this thread OP!

The flammable and Inflammable thing drives me round the bend

I understood it the same way as you, always thought the dark refers to hair colour (skin could be any), are you sure it doesn’t?

It should be damp squib. A squib was a sort of firework and a damp one would not go off as expected.

Yeah I know Right. WTAF?! 😆

Bucolic sounds like it should describe something nasty, but it means the opposite! I think I used to confuse it with bubonic. 😂