Idioms Cliches Colloquialisms Etc...

[kwbMitel]

There have been a number of threads recently where some idioms have been used where the meaning was lost for some readers. I wish I could remember the most recent one that was a great example but alas, it is not to be. (Something about a gentleman riding a trolley? - UK origin)

My father was a significant user of many sayings. Most confuse me to this day (He is a Newfoundlander with all that that entails)

One of his more colorful expressions was regarding the consumption of spicy food. He would say "Boy, That'll sure cauterise the hemorrhoids" This example does not require any interpretation, context or cultural exposure. I've found myself to be quite entertained by some of the colloquialisms that are out there that have meaning withing a select group of people but none outside of it.

I am reminded of an episode of Star Trek TNG where an alien species can only communicate via metaphor.

I'm sure we've all got some good ones.

Lets hear them, and give us the meaning if necessary and where it might be used.

I expect that quite a few of these might come from Australia but that may just be a bias on my part.

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[2ffat]

Built like a brick . . . house. Made popular by a 70's song. The original phase was "built like a brick s*** house," meaning a brick building used to store human waste. It had to be well build or you could smell it. Hence, "built like a brick ... house" came to mean, well built. That term eventually came to me a well-endowed woman.



James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[missybean1]

I think my son came up with this phrase. I've never heard anyone else say it. When he would eat something very sour, he would say, "Ohhh, that makes my jaws rear up".

 

[kwbMitel]

@BigBadBen

One of yours is one of those common expressions that everyone knows what it means but close analysis makes no sense.

Cuts the mustard

I have always thought this to be an amalgamation of multiple sayings that has morphed into the current variation.

There is a military term about gathering together all people:
To Muster or make Muster

Then there is Making the cut

These combine to form Cut the mustard. (or so I believe)

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[mscallisto]

Colder than a well diggers butt" or that other word for butt.

which would be true if you dug an old fashion stone lined 20 meter deep well.

sam

 

[Welshbird]

My fovourite is a south walean expression meaning hungover...

I'm proper armpits to breakfast!

Fee

"The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dinesen

 

[CajunCenturion]

I think the "cut the mustard" is more likely to have evolved from the notion of mustard, as in the phrase "keen as mustard" or the phrase "the proper mustard" as being the genuine article, and being the best. You can see mustard in this sense in O'Henry's early 1900 writings. Since mustard was a superlative, cutting the mustard meant to not measure up to the genuine article, or not being excellent.

Originally, "cut the mustard" was an implicit negative statement, i.e. if you cut the mustard, then you did not measure up. You cut the excellence. Over time, however, the implied negative was replaced with an explicit negative so that if you didn't cut the mustard, then you didn't measure up. That allowed for the positive connotation to cut the mustard being to measure up.

I wish I knew the evolution of some of the other idioms presented.

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[SantaMufasa]

kwb,

My sensibilities would agree that "cut the mustard" arose from some form of "making the cut at muster", but the early "adjusters" of the phrase had no clue what "muster" was.

The other "contamination" of a phrase was one we oldsters used to use when playing "hide-and-go-seek". At the end of a round, all who were clever enough to stay hidden without being caught, we'd call them back in with "Ollie, Ollie oxen free". This is what the older kids were saying, so we said it, as well.

Little did any of us know that it came from misunderstanding the phrase, "All ye, All ye outs in free," meaning "All of you who are still out there hiding, can come in free now without losing."

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[JCreamerII]

Try this one on. Most people don't have a clue what it means. "rough as a cob".

Jim C.

 

[SamBones]

Many many years ago, I was quite fluent in American Sign Language, even to the point of being a translator on occasions. While learning ASL, I came across a book that I love to this day. It's called "A Dictionary of Idioms for the Deaf".

Deaf people don't have the opportunity to learn a lot of the very common colloquialisms by hearing them in context, so when they "hear" someone say that "their ears are burning", or "someone let the cat out of the bag", their first interpretation is to take it literally. This dictionary is packed with clear explanations of idioms from the extremely common to the very obscure.

There are a lot of "Wordies" and language lovers in this forum. I think a lot of you would love this book. I keep mine next to my Websters, OED, and Roget's.

 

[DrB0b]

Cant squeeze blood from a turnip
Useless as t!ts on a boar


"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[N1GHTEYES]

JCreamerII - I assume the cob reference is to a corn cob (specifically one from which the corn kernels had been removed), and that it applied to those sad times when neither goose-necks or tripple-ply, velvet-soft bog-roll were available, and alternative wiping materials had to be found.

Tony

 

[JCreamerII]

Tony,

You'd be suprised how many people can't even get close. I use it all the time, just to see the reaction, if any? Just tells be how much they are paying attention. And yes, the Sear's catalog must have been used up.

Jim C.

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Most people don't have a clue what it means. "rough as a cob".
Ouch.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read
FAQ181-2886
Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something. - Plato

 

[mscallisto]

He could eat corn on the cob through a picket fence"
was a rather offensive description of a bucked toothed person.

FYI
In French, buck teeth are called dents à l'anglaise, lit. "English teeth."

 

[N1GHTEYES]

There are plenty of Anglo-French insults knocking around. E.g. "French Leave" = going AWOL.

Tony

 

[DrB0b]

One I had forgotten about this one until a couple minutes ago courtesy of a fellow TT member:

Fly in the ointment

"You don't now what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???

 

[kwbMitel]

I have seen 2 reasonable but not definitive origins for the expression:

The Whole 9 Yards

1) (my prefered) = the length of the magazine on a P51 Spitfire

2) = The amount of material required to make a high quality double breasted suit.

Thoughts opinions?

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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[mscallisto]

I heard it was the capacity of an (old) full concrete truck aka but not correct "cement truck".

sam

 

[2ffat]

kwbMitel,
[tab]I've always heard #1 but it wasn't just the Spitfire that held 27 feet of bullets but most WWII single fighter planes, e.g., P-51 Mustang.


James P. Cottingham
[sup]I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229![/sup]

 

[kwbMitel]

See - This is exactly how things get mixed up. I said P-51 Spitfire (not Mustang) Now I'm unsure which plane had the properties in fact. I'll go with 2ffat's assertion that most WWII single fighter planes had the required element.

I had not heard the Concrete/Cement Truck version although I can see how it might make sense as well. Although it might not "Cut the mustard" on the usage being before the existance of said truck.

KenCunningham - Re:'The man On The Clapham Omnibus' That is exactly what I was looking for. How I morphed Omnibus into Trolley is also an insight into what goes on to change some of these expressions over time.



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What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.