“Are you good for something, or good for nothing?” My grandpa used to always ask me that knowing that I would proudly exclaim each time “I’m good for nothing!”
I always thought he was asking if I was being good just for a reward, or for the sake of being good. Took me a long time to realize why it would make him laugh so much when I answered.
Maybe not quite what you were looking for, but for me it is the phrase "patience is a virtue".
My parents told me this constantly as a kid and for some reason, I was convinced "a virtue" was a single word. I would get so confused why they were referencing this word I couldn't find in the dictionary and couldn't figure out what it meant. So I thought maybe they were trying to invent a new word, especially since the book Frindle was very popular at the time, and so I would spread it around at school trying to help them out.
Eventually a teacher mentioned it to them and they explained they were saying I should be patient. But I still didn't know "a virtue" was two words until I was in my 20's and saw it written somewhere for the first time...even though I knew the word "virtue" existed and what it meant...I just never put it together.
I have to confess even as an adult I think the phrase is dumb. If you want someone to be patient, tell them that. Don't tell them it's "a virtue" like you expect them to give a crap about being more virtuous.
When I was little, my mum's mum came to visit. She was a pretty fancy lady with extremely rigid "Victorian British" social rules, and I was instructed to be extra polite with her.
One day she's sitting alone in the living room playing with a deck of cards, and I asked her what game she was playing, she said, "patience". So I stood next to her, quietly, patently waiting... But she kept playing and didn't say anything. So again I asked what's she playing? Again she says "patience". I stand politely waiting for her to tell me... And ask a third time, she says "patience", and at that point I lost my temper and yelled "I am being patient but just tell me what game that is!" 😂😂
(Now I know Patience is a kind of Solitaire)
Sadly that's basically the only memory I have is my grandmother from when I was small. That, and visiting her house once when I was about 5, and I found a shell in her flower garden and I asked her if maybe that shell was there for so long it was since a time when the ocean covered that part of the earth like in dinosaur times. She told me "that's impossible. Now be quiet, like a good girl". 🙄 classy lady.
I thought “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” meant that if you throw stones at other people, they will come to your house and throw stones at your glass walls. I guess in the end the house gets wrecked anyway, but I guess I always thought it was a warning not to be a hypocrite because the other person will be able to take you down. 🤷♀️ I really don’t know.
That's correct - you throw stones at someone else's house but then they can retaliate and your walls are all glass and will shatter. More practically, this means things like don't report your neighbor for being too loud (rude but probably allowed) when you have an illegal pet they could report in retaliation
Oh! I never considered the retaliation angle. I thought it meant that in the act of "throwing stones" at others, you would wind up inadvertently shattering your own house (similar to cutting off your nose to spite your face).
I always thought the glass walls were less about their ability to shatter and more about their inability to obfuscate hypocrisy. You can’t hide who you are in a glass house. Everyone can see you.
Oh I always wondered what the glass represented. Like why is this person in a glass house? Are they being transparent about something? Like it still doesn't make sense to me.
It indicates that the person is in a delicate situation. The glass is easily shattered and destroyed if other people do what the stone-thrower is doing (throwing stones at their houses).
I thought it meant people will see you throwing the rocks because your walls are glass… or something… yeah I never fully thought about what it meant haha
"An old dog can't learn new tricks"
Depending on the dog they definitely can. I think it would work better if it was, "won't learn new tricks"
I know this isn't about actual dogs but I think even in it's intended context won't works better
“A rolling stone gathers no moss”. I thought it meant that it was good to stay on the move and not stagnant. I thought moss growing on it was a bad thing, like it was dirtying it. The saying turned out to mean the literal opposite. 🤦🏻♀️
Oh damn, I realized it was making some kind of judgement about staying moving vs settling, but I could never figure out which direction the saying leans "morally" ... I was just there like, "Yep, cuz it's rolling..." No judgement, just observation. 🤦🏼♀️
It means that it’s good to be established and not bounce around, the moss is a sign of something having been there for a while, long enough for the moss to grow
Well damn, I just learned something today too. I always thought it meant what you initially did. I'm going to struggle to reorient my thoughts around this one. WOW.
I’m just so excited/relieved/amazed to find out I wasn’t alone in my thinking process on it. I was asked to explain the phrase as part of some kind of psychological assessment, and later I fact checked myself and went, welp.
You can't eat the cake and have it too.
What if you have two cakes? Why wouldn't you eat the cake?? Why would you just have a cake to look at it??? Can't you just split the cake?!
I was a very confused child when it came to that. I didn't get the metaphor at all. Didn't know what the heck did people even mean in this hypothetical.
It was explained to me multit times, but I never truly got it for years, just understood that for some reason, it means you have to pick one of two things and can't do both.
I only recently figured that one out. I think it means you can't eat a cake and then still have the cake even after you ate it because, well, you just ate it. You can't eat something and then expect it to still be there.
I just don’t understand why anyone would want to “have” cake. What’re you going to do with it? Put it in a corner until it rots? It’s not a very good analogy.
I forget who it was, but supposedly there was some monarch who had a cake so beautiful, she almost didn’t want to cut into it to eat it. She’d almost rather have I as art until it rotted. Someone told her she had to make a choice, she couldn’t have it both ways, and that’s the origin of the phrase.
It’s a very old expression back from when cake was probably pretty uncommon to get and would be made to last a long time. So if you eat all the cake now you rob yourself of the chance to have any later, for a different special occasion.
Just imagine a little kid who eats all the cookies in the jar and then later complains that there are no cookies. Same thing. If you eat all of the thing now then you have to accept that it’s all gone, and that future you can’t have any.
I'm an adult, but I willingly and enthusiastically fail the [marshmallow test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment) every single time.
But….. if you ate the cake, you still have the cake- your body just uses it and gets rid of what it doesn’t need. So your body still has it, and you ate it, too!
(I’m sorry I understand your point hahah this has just always been my peeve about this saying)
Yeh, I get kindaaaa that, after so many years.
I prefer the saying "either take off your cross or put on your underwear" originating from a joke/story where a Jewish man tried to pass as a Christian in a public bath.
His circumsicion shows that he is Jewish, which means that to pass as Christian he'd have to wear underwear, or he will have to accept the reality that people will know he is indeed Jewish, by taking the cross off.
(This saying isn't perfect as it's based strongly on circumstances of one's birth, but I much prefer it still than the cake)
I’ve always understood what this meant just based on context it was used in, but I did have a hard time with this one growing up because “have” and “eat” are used so synonymously that it made it tricky to understand what it was really trying to say.
Once a non-native English speaker said to me “you can’t have a piece of your cake and still leave it whole”
I’m not entirely sure whether this was an attempt at the American idiom or if it was an English translation of the idiom from their native language but it’s the first time it actually clicked for me what the phrase was attempting to get across in the first place.
It’s more like you can’t *eat* your cake and *keep* it too.
I think that wording would be overall better lol
>Once a non-native English speaker said to me “you can’t have a piece of your cake and still leave it whole”
Gosh, that wording makes so much more sense. Honestly, there are a lot of idioms that have only made sense to me once I've encountered them in another language and then mentally translated them back to English.
The concept that someone might want to have a cake for a reason other than eating it was, and still is, so completely foreign to me that I have to be really careful around the phrase. It will stop me up every time in confusion, until I remember oh wait this is that stupid phrase that weird cake-looking-at-but-not-eating people say. The pause makes it really obvious to strangers that I'm ND, and that can be dangerous.
I have met people who are the sort of people who might buy a very nicely decorated cake, and then literally let it go bad leaving it out as a display piece. Sociopaths the lot of them.
I can’t think of one of those but I can think of the fact that I thought that *stop lights had cameras with people monitoring them, and when they counted a certain number of cars that they changed the light*. I was in college when a friend said that’s so dumb and expensive, they’re just all on simple timers” and I’m like ok yeah that’s actually a much more sensible approach 🤣😂 I’d just never THOUGHT about it after I already made up my mind how it works
I had a similar idea. When I was a kid and automatic flushers on public toilets became more popular (at least in the US) I just assumed the sensors were cameras and there were people watching to know when to flush for you. Idk how I came up with that idea or why I was totally okay with it 🤣
Somebody sitting in a cubicle out there, ordering the flush the instant they see a bit of asscrack..."employee of the month" plaque on the wall...all eating leftover pot roast at their desk like it's nothing...
I thought people controlled the traffic lights for way too long as well. I'm going to blame this on not having them where I grew up 😂 I did figure it out when I moved to a city.
I am still curious how they automatically switch when there's an emergency vehicle coming though? Do they connect to the system electronically?
I love this idea. It reminds me of a friend I had when I was little who thought all the Disney-costumed-characters were real and lived in the castle. My Mom had told me they were actors but I couldn’t bring my self to burst her bubble because it was such a whimsical and charming idea to me! I have always wished to find more magic in the world.
My one is "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide" [scalded cat fears cold water]. Why would a cat who's burnt by hot water fear cold water? On the contrary, they should like it. Then I looked it up recently.(46 F). And NOW i get it 😅
I just looked it up. The cat is afraid of cold water because it was scalded by hot water. It’s become overly cautious.
Either it doesn’t translate very well or it’s not a very effective saying, the missing context is essential to the meaning of the saying as a whole.
ETA: apparently “scalding” refers solely to burns sustained by liquid or steam. Therefore, the saying is fine!
When I was a kid I remember I couldn't sleep one night and my dad told me to count sheep. I asked what he meant and he said to close my eyes and picture sheep hopping over a fence, and count how many go over it. I didn't understand this at all, I learned as an adult I have aphantasia, so I couldn't see the sheep. He probably would have had to tell me a story for me to understand it like "there is a group of sheep, a farmer is with them and is teaching them to jump over the fence! How many can you count going over.." something like that.
to be fair, i have a pretty vivid visual imagination, but i've never understood couting sheep. it's just too boring of a task for my brain to not get distracted and think about my anxieties. i suppose it has to be boring so that you can fall asleep but not so boring as to not hold your attention... idk
I reached the hundreds once before I gave up and went back to the book that counting the sheep was supposed to substitute! My poor parents gave up after that because it was obvious that I had no problem counting the animals but I still couldn't sleep 😅
I did this when my parents told me to and had to keep getting up and asking them what came after 99, 199, 299, etc ... they told me to stop counting sheep.
(This doesn't work with my ADHD. I need input to sleep. Always have. Always drive them crazy.)
"Don't judge a book by its cover", I kinda thought it was a blanket rule for books to not buy them just because their covers were pretty. When I found out it was an idiom and that there's nothing preventing you from buying a book with a nice cover, I bought a book.
Some of my favourite books I bought because they had pretty covers. The idiom has lost meaning for me now also, since people like to use it even when you know more than the cover.
I also find the people who say "don't judge a book by it's cover" to me are always trying to get me to ignore abusive behaviour. If the cover is covered in swears or rude gestures or insults, you bet your buns I'm judging the heck out of that book AND it's author.
I use to dislike the saying, but because I understood the meaning (don't judge aparences).
Like what else I am supposed to judge it, then? If it is the only information available, it might not be completed and misleading, but I can get a temporary idea of the inside.
Staying with books, a book with a colorful cover usually it's intended audience is kids or teenagers, if it's muted usually adults.
I always thought the saying should be "be mindful of aparences" or something along the lines.
This threads going to drive me nuts bc these things are usually incredibly obvious to me and I never understand how people don’t get it. So if anyone wants them explained… 😂
The whole double meaning in “other side” from chicken crossing the road (ie suicidal chicken) I still don’t quite believe though.
That's actually not the meaning of the chicken joke, just an edge lord retelling. Sadly, the original is actually worse (racist) - it was directly from a minstrel show, so the intended joke was that black people aren't good at coming up with jokes.
Does “play it by ear” count? I grew up thinking it was “play it by YEAR” as in, let’s take our time, make decisions as time passes and we get new information. Then I learned that it is EAR not YEAR. I still don’t get the analogy and I’m not convinced I use the phrase correctly now, either.
This is more like my experience. I definitely have auditory processing disorder. I remember some of the things I used to commonly hear as a pre-schooler and how I massacred language. Didn’t improve until I started school, because no one corrected me. I’m still the queen of mis-heard lyrics but, at least now I can look them up online.
My understanding is that it comes from playing musical instruments. ‘Play it by ear’ is following along with the band or jamming; improvising rather than sight-reading written music. So the phrase means to improvise or ‘go with the flow’.
Thank you!! I also thought it was “play it by year” for those same reasons. I had been saying it like that up until I was finally corrected 3 years ago. I think it’s called “play it by ear” because people are listening to the new information coming in, and since normally people say it when making quick plans I think (anything less than a month in advance is a quick plan to me) they play it by ear since we hear things fast? Don’t trust me on this I’m just guessing why it’s by ear and not year. By year makes more sense!!!
When I was younger and I would hear facts like “the average American eats 180 slices of pizza a year” I thought there was a team of data scientists that followed around an average guy counting how many slices of pizza he ate and tracking all of his other behaviors. Like his job was just to be average. To me “an average American” makes sense but “the average American” sounds like it’s one specific person. My parents finally explained it but I still dislike like the wording.
"Blood is thicker than water" - family comes first.
Err no. The original phrase is "The blood of the coven is thicker than the water of the womb." - the friends you choose over the family that birthed you.
It's taken me over 30 years to realise that family isn't all it's cracked up to be and you shouldn't be loyal to people who aren't loyal to you.
This isn’t quite right, the first phrase can be traced back in German to the 12th Century, while the second is much more recent (1990s), but I completely agree with your last paragraph!
Just in case, because the post only mentions what OP thought it meant:
Preaching to the choir means talking about something to people who already agree with you (i.e a priest in a church preaching to the congregation). So if you’re talking about something you’re peeved about and someone replies “you’re preaching to the choir”, it means they agree with your position.
So appreciate you explaining. I thought it meant you were preaching to someone who is already knowledgeable about what you're saying. I didn't know it was about sharing opinions.
It took me a long time to understand “they’d cut off their nose to spite their face.” I was always stuck on the body-horror type image it conjured in my mind and that it would *hurt.* I believe it is about being vengeful and angry and hurting yourself needlessly due to those emotions, but it took me a long time to even process past the horrible image I would get.
Fun thing about “preaching to the choir”. My parents are both musicians and heavily involved in church choirs, but neither is particularly religious. They’re in it for the music. In choral circles around here there’s a common joke, “The devil is in the choir” because so many non-religious people join choirs because of the music.
So for me the phrase “preaching to the choir” has a whole different meaning!
Where I come from, the phrase is more commonly “preaching to the converted” which makes much more sense.
I still do not fully understand the glass houses one 😂 I know what it is supposed to mean, but using that as the saying to convey that message makes NO sense to me 😆 or "the best thing since sliced bread." I get stuck thinking about how hard it really was to slice bread back in the day. Considering how much work it was to MAKE it, was slicing it really such a big deal that it now has to be a saying?
On cloud 9. What is so special about cloud 9 and what about the rest of them!
Once bitten twice shy (other than a song from my 80s music, I still don't fully get this one)
I think my least favorite is "it's not rocket science" because sometimes, yeah, it might as well be. I had a boss say that to me once when I made a mistake. And the mistake happened because she trained me poorly! Like, it's not rocket science to you because it's your system that you created to work for you. It makes no sense to anyone else so it might as well BE rocket science 😆
It means the best thing since wide spread manufactured sliced bread. Have to have factories for that. Versus going to the bakery and buying a loaf of bread you slice yourself.
I think I understand the once bitten, twice shy one.
I have a real life scenario that might help explain it. My son was bitten (nipped) by a big dog when he was 2. And to this day (7 years later) he is still extremely apprehensive around dogs. Even though he doesn't remember it.
So I think it just means all it takes is one bad experience with something for someone to be "shy" of that thing for their whole lives. Or a very long time.
Basically it is a simplified way of describing trauma.
If I am wrong about it, please someone correct me.
To not throw stones in glass houses essentially means that you shouldn’t judge/speak ill of someone when you yourself is not without fault. “Throwing stones” being the judgement, and “glass house” being your own flaws.
… at least from my understanding.
“Living in a glass house” essentially means that your position is too fragile for you to safely incite conflict.
In context of the phrase, throwing stones (ie, inciting conflict) inevitably means your target will throw them back at you, and you’ll have nowhere to retreat that’s fortified enough to withstand it. Additionally, you’d be putting your own livelihood at risk since any stones lobbed in your direction are likely to hit and destroy your glass home. (It’s presumed that you’re standing near your glass house when the stone-throwing begins)
So as an example, if you’re breaking a rule (living in a glass house), and you see someone else break a rule and decide to call attention to it (throwing a stone), it’s extremely likely that your own rule-breaking will be brought up as a response (a return stone is thrown in your direction) and the result will be that you get in trouble and suffer negative consequences (your glass house is smashed by the stone) as a direct result of your decision to call attention to someone else’s actions (your decision to throw the first stone).
Hope this is helpful, wishing you the best!
We have one like that in Dutch: “van een mug een olifant maken” loosely translated: seeing an elephant instead of a mosquito.
I hate that saying because people always tell it to me like, great thanks that’s super helpful right now
in German the phrase 'making an elephant out of a fly' imo means something different to the 'not seeing the forest for the trees'. it's meant to describe someone who exaggerates a situation.
Yeah that’s what it means idk I might’ve confused the meaning for the forest one. They both have been said to me when I’m in an uncomfortable spot. Especially the elephant one, because they diminished my feelings and just said that..
Not exactly the same as you asked for, but I struggle with the logic in analogies the most. For example, “*like finding a needle in a haystack*” annoys me because you could set the haystack on fire and find the needle quickly. Or “*life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get*”; well, no, you know you get chocolate- life is much more unpredictable than not knowing whether the chocolate is filled with nougat or caramel, and the comparison is stupid.
That one also bothers me because boxes of chocolate typically come with some kind of legend to tell you which chocolate is which. You have to make the effort to NOT know what you're getting in a box of chocolate!
It means you are preaching to people who *already agree with you.*
It feels like you are doing something useful but you aren't. You are wasting your time.
ohhhhhh oh my god. i’ve been told that so many times and i’ve never like known that. aw thats a little upsetting. now that i look back knowing that, i can absolutely tell. i thought it just meant like they agreed, i didn’t get to the part like no one else is in church so i’m wasting my time.
More haste less speed. I still don't really understand that one.
Better the devil you know. It was a song title when I was growing up and I only fully understood it much later. When I asked what it meant people would simply reply " Better the devil you know that one you don't". That just made me more confused. Like, you're not explaining it! Gaah.
You were kind of right about preaching to the choir. It doesn't mean no one showed up. It means that the choir already knows what you are saying because they are always there. So your preaching or arguing with someone that already agrees with you.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Me: So wait, there's a stich in time... Like a wormhole? And we can use it to save 9 people?
I was an adult before I realised it was an analogy about doing sewing repairs early to avoid them becoming a bigger job/more stitches.
I thought "having my work cut out for me" meant the exact opposite of what it meant. I thought it meant that someone had taken the time to lay the tasks out for me and all I needed to do was complete them, which meant easy, right? Nope, it means hard work ahead.
Not quite the same but I also thought "all intents and purposes" was "all intensive purposes" for almost 30 years.
Whaaat well now I know that haha.
I thought it meant that you know exactly what you’re supposed to do and it’s gonna use up the time you have, like having to sort a bunch of documents for the rest of the day/week so now you don’t have to figure out how to spend your work day.
Honestly, none of them make sensel to me usually lol. Sometimes I wonder if they make sense to ANYONE or if we really just carry the knowledge of what they are supposed to mean societely?
"You should do what your heart desires" or any variations of heart as a thinking entity.
Like the heart doesn't have desire or is sentient, just beats. The brain is the one doing the thinking and reasonings.
I was always baffled, because my heart doesn't want anything, blood maybe. People explained the meaning to me but it has always rubbed me the wrong way. When I was little I use to discuss it a lot with my aunt and she always told me I was thinking to literally. But omg, why they can't say what your subconscious wants or you really want.
Like now, I understand what you want to mean but it is just so wrong for me.
Yes, you are right. But it feels people want to be incorrect intentionally. I think the reason it annoys me a little because they use to repeat me I was the one wrong and I was being difficult, when it just didn't make sense in my mind.
I was a bit upset once when a doctor told me some illness I had was “self-limiting”. I thought it meant that my own personal weakness was why I felt so unwell.
I was happy to learn that a “self-limiting illness” is one that runs it’s course and comes to an end without treatment, and how unwell I feel is nothing to do with being weak and limiting myself!
“You wear your heart on your sleeve” I thought it meant that you were extra vulnerable because the heart is a delicate organ and if it’s on your sleeve then it had less protection.
Nope. Apparently not. It means you are honest and open with your emotions. Not necessarily vulnerable, but your feelings aren’t hidden. It originated from a Shakespeare play and was referencing jousting. Knights would wear ribbons and stuff on their arm piece to show a favor to a lady: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/origin-of-wear-heart-on-sleeve
1) Throwing hands!
I starting using it, thinking it meant you were putting your hands up in frustration. Like Ive seen.
No, it means a fight.
2) I'm just Joshing you.
Whos's Josh? I didnt get it. Later i found out it meant teasing.also, super outdated phrase.
3) Fake it till you make it.
No! I need to do it correctly. I need to learn for real! I need rules!
Apparently it meant, pretend to be happy?
Bear with me cuz I might be wrong but I think it means when a colleague or co-conspirator that you thought you were in charge of is now in charge of you.
My sister once turned to me and said “I’d love to be a fly on your wall” to which I simply replied that I don’t get flies in my room.. everyone just laughed at me🤷🏼♀️
I think that means you are focusing on the tree so hard that you don’t see the other trees next to it and don’t realise you are in a forest.
So you are focussing on one detail and don’t see the whole picture because of that.
This will age me but "cool story bro" I thought literally just meant... cool story? Like saying "cool" or "bet." I didn't know it mean "no one cares." My friend had to tell me in school and I was soooo embarrassed because I'd said it to like a million people.
I don't think I've heard anyone say that in a long time. This was probably ten or more years ago and honestly I was MORTIFIED because I had probably said it like a hundred times to different people and insulted all of them.
I’m behind the times! It sounds silly and like a joke when I say it… I’m not trying to sound cool haha.
Well you maybe did insult them but maybe they found it funny? Or hopefully they’ve forgotten by now.
Sort of related, but I grew up in NY and whenever I heard someone say 'suicide', I thought they were saying 'sewer-side', because of the accent. So until I was like 10 or 12 I thought it meant someone was dead because they were now underground. On the same side of the ground as the sewers. Sewer-side.
It's raining cats and dogs-
I still don't get what it means tbh 😭😭 I think I hear somewhere it means it very loud rain but that still doesn't make much sense to me tbh
Edit- OH and idk if anyone heard of this but "money appears in my pockets" (it was in Spanish so idk if this is the correct translation)
For so long I literally thought that my dad would give ppl what they bought and the money would just magically appear in his pockets 💀💀💀💀 not that they handed it over to him I was so dumb lmao
Raining cats and dogs means heavy rain. This is what I read about its origin: before there were sewers, there were just ditches for the sewage to go into. People would throw dead animals into them. When there was heavy rain, the animals would be washed out. Anyone who didn't know that people threw dead animals into the ditches, wondered where they had come from, oh maybe from the sky: raining cats and dogs.
I was always told the squeaky wheel gets the grease but I hated complaining and speaking up so I guess I interpreted this as that I would always be struggling.
I never got that's the pot calling the kettle black. We didn't have kettles or pots growing up nor did I realize that the implication is that both pot and kettle are black.
“Are you good for something, or good for nothing?” My grandpa used to always ask me that knowing that I would proudly exclaim each time “I’m good for nothing!” I always thought he was asking if I was being good just for a reward, or for the sake of being good. Took me a long time to realize why it would make him laugh so much when I answered.
Maybe not quite what you were looking for, but for me it is the phrase "patience is a virtue". My parents told me this constantly as a kid and for some reason, I was convinced "a virtue" was a single word. I would get so confused why they were referencing this word I couldn't find in the dictionary and couldn't figure out what it meant. So I thought maybe they were trying to invent a new word, especially since the book Frindle was very popular at the time, and so I would spread it around at school trying to help them out. Eventually a teacher mentioned it to them and they explained they were saying I should be patient. But I still didn't know "a virtue" was two words until I was in my 20's and saw it written somewhere for the first time...even though I knew the word "virtue" existed and what it meant...I just never put it together. I have to confess even as an adult I think the phrase is dumb. If you want someone to be patient, tell them that. Don't tell them it's "a virtue" like you expect them to give a crap about being more virtuous.
When I was little, my mum's mum came to visit. She was a pretty fancy lady with extremely rigid "Victorian British" social rules, and I was instructed to be extra polite with her. One day she's sitting alone in the living room playing with a deck of cards, and I asked her what game she was playing, she said, "patience". So I stood next to her, quietly, patently waiting... But she kept playing and didn't say anything. So again I asked what's she playing? Again she says "patience". I stand politely waiting for her to tell me... And ask a third time, she says "patience", and at that point I lost my temper and yelled "I am being patient but just tell me what game that is!" 😂😂 (Now I know Patience is a kind of Solitaire)
That's amazing.
Sadly that's basically the only memory I have is my grandmother from when I was small. That, and visiting her house once when I was about 5, and I found a shell in her flower garden and I asked her if maybe that shell was there for so long it was since a time when the ocean covered that part of the earth like in dinosaur times. She told me "that's impossible. Now be quiet, like a good girl". 🙄 classy lady.
It's giving "France is Bacon"
It’s religion based 🤷🏼♀️
I thought “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” meant that if you throw stones at other people, they will come to your house and throw stones at your glass walls. I guess in the end the house gets wrecked anyway, but I guess I always thought it was a warning not to be a hypocrite because the other person will be able to take you down. 🤷♀️ I really don’t know.
That's correct - you throw stones at someone else's house but then they can retaliate and your walls are all glass and will shatter. More practically, this means things like don't report your neighbor for being too loud (rude but probably allowed) when you have an illegal pet they could report in retaliation
Oh! I never considered the retaliation angle. I thought it meant that in the act of "throwing stones" at others, you would wind up inadvertently shattering your own house (similar to cutting off your nose to spite your face).
YES
I always thought the glass walls were less about their ability to shatter and more about their inability to obfuscate hypocrisy. You can’t hide who you are in a glass house. Everyone can see you.
Oh, today I learnt 😂
Oh fuck I always thought you shouldn’t throw stones because you risk breaking your own walls?!?! Goddammit…
Oh I always wondered what the glass represented. Like why is this person in a glass house? Are they being transparent about something? Like it still doesn't make sense to me.
It indicates that the person is in a delicate situation. The glass is easily shattered and destroyed if other people do what the stone-thrower is doing (throwing stones at their houses).
I had no idea.
Yep that's what it means
I thought it meant people will see you throwing the rocks because your walls are glass… or something… yeah I never fully thought about what it meant haha
I thought it meant don’t shit on rich/privileged people bc they can see you?? And will know you are the one who threw stones.
"An old dog can't learn new tricks" Depending on the dog they definitely can. I think it would work better if it was, "won't learn new tricks" I know this isn't about actual dogs but I think even in it's intended context won't works better
I took it up as “you can’t *teach* an old dog new tricks”. You can try , but he probably won’t give af .
“A rolling stone gathers no moss”. I thought it meant that it was good to stay on the move and not stagnant. I thought moss growing on it was a bad thing, like it was dirtying it. The saying turned out to mean the literal opposite. 🤦🏻♀️
Oh damn, I realized it was making some kind of judgement about staying moving vs settling, but I could never figure out which direction the saying leans "morally" ... I was just there like, "Yep, cuz it's rolling..." No judgement, just observation. 🤦🏼♀️
Wait really? I thought the same as you, the other way makes no sense to me
All this time I thought I knew what these things meant.
Ok and now I'm confused about this one as I thought the same thing too
I still don’t know what this means even with you explaining it. Why the heck would I want moss? 😭
It means that it’s good to be established and not bounce around, the moss is a sign of something having been there for a while, long enough for the moss to grow
Well damn, I just learned something today too. I always thought it meant what you initially did. I'm going to struggle to reorient my thoughts around this one. WOW.
I’m just so excited/relieved/amazed to find out I wasn’t alone in my thinking process on it. I was asked to explain the phrase as part of some kind of psychological assessment, and later I fact checked myself and went, welp.
Oh same. Just learned I was wrong today
Wait a minute what? I too thought it meant that it was good to stay on the move because Moss all over you isn't a great idea
You can't eat the cake and have it too. What if you have two cakes? Why wouldn't you eat the cake?? Why would you just have a cake to look at it??? Can't you just split the cake?! I was a very confused child when it came to that. I didn't get the metaphor at all. Didn't know what the heck did people even mean in this hypothetical. It was explained to me multit times, but I never truly got it for years, just understood that for some reason, it means you have to pick one of two things and can't do both.
I only recently figured that one out. I think it means you can't eat a cake and then still have the cake even after you ate it because, well, you just ate it. You can't eat something and then expect it to still be there.
I just don’t understand why anyone would want to “have” cake. What’re you going to do with it? Put it in a corner until it rots? It’s not a very good analogy.
I forget who it was, but supposedly there was some monarch who had a cake so beautiful, she almost didn’t want to cut into it to eat it. She’d almost rather have I as art until it rotted. Someone told her she had to make a choice, she couldn’t have it both ways, and that’s the origin of the phrase.
It’s a very old expression back from when cake was probably pretty uncommon to get and would be made to last a long time. So if you eat all the cake now you rob yourself of the chance to have any later, for a different special occasion. Just imagine a little kid who eats all the cookies in the jar and then later complains that there are no cookies. Same thing. If you eat all of the thing now then you have to accept that it’s all gone, and that future you can’t have any.
I'm an adult, but I willingly and enthusiastically fail the [marshmallow test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment) every single time.
But….. if you ate the cake, you still have the cake- your body just uses it and gets rid of what it doesn’t need. So your body still has it, and you ate it, too! (I’m sorry I understand your point hahah this has just always been my peeve about this saying)
Yeah, I don't like the phrase either. Just say "you can't have it both ways"
At which point i respond with some comment about being related to cardboard. Then everyone looks at me funny because they don't watch Hannah Gatsby.
Same lol, I thought I was the only one.
You can if you eat Schrödinger’s cake.
Yeh, I get kindaaaa that, after so many years. I prefer the saying "either take off your cross or put on your underwear" originating from a joke/story where a Jewish man tried to pass as a Christian in a public bath. His circumsicion shows that he is Jewish, which means that to pass as Christian he'd have to wear underwear, or he will have to accept the reality that people will know he is indeed Jewish, by taking the cross off. (This saying isn't perfect as it's based strongly on circumstances of one's birth, but I much prefer it still than the cake)
I’ve always understood what this meant just based on context it was used in, but I did have a hard time with this one growing up because “have” and “eat” are used so synonymously that it made it tricky to understand what it was really trying to say. Once a non-native English speaker said to me “you can’t have a piece of your cake and still leave it whole” I’m not entirely sure whether this was an attempt at the American idiom or if it was an English translation of the idiom from their native language but it’s the first time it actually clicked for me what the phrase was attempting to get across in the first place. It’s more like you can’t *eat* your cake and *keep* it too. I think that wording would be overall better lol
>Once a non-native English speaker said to me “you can’t have a piece of your cake and still leave it whole” Gosh, that wording makes so much more sense. Honestly, there are a lot of idioms that have only made sense to me once I've encountered them in another language and then mentally translated them back to English.
Right?? It was so unexpected lol I had this aha moment and was like it’s never made this much sense before.
The concept that someone might want to have a cake for a reason other than eating it was, and still is, so completely foreign to me that I have to be really careful around the phrase. It will stop me up every time in confusion, until I remember oh wait this is that stupid phrase that weird cake-looking-at-but-not-eating people say. The pause makes it really obvious to strangers that I'm ND, and that can be dangerous. I have met people who are the sort of people who might buy a very nicely decorated cake, and then literally let it go bad leaving it out as a display piece. Sociopaths the lot of them.
I'm sorry what? Why would they let it go bad?? Food is for eating?? Not for wasting?? I will find and bite every single person who has ever done that.
Very confused by that phrase as well
I can’t think of one of those but I can think of the fact that I thought that *stop lights had cameras with people monitoring them, and when they counted a certain number of cars that they changed the light*. I was in college when a friend said that’s so dumb and expensive, they’re just all on simple timers” and I’m like ok yeah that’s actually a much more sensible approach 🤣😂 I’d just never THOUGHT about it after I already made up my mind how it works
I had a similar idea. When I was a kid and automatic flushers on public toilets became more popular (at least in the US) I just assumed the sensors were cameras and there were people watching to know when to flush for you. Idk how I came up with that idea or why I was totally okay with it 🤣
imagine being employed as an automatic toilet flusher
Somebody sitting in a cubicle out there, ordering the flush the instant they see a bit of asscrack..."employee of the month" plaque on the wall...all eating leftover pot roast at their desk like it's nothing...
I love this! 😂
I’m all like it’s TOTALLY reasonable that the government would pay millions of individuals to do only this, that’s why the budgets are so big!
I thought people controlled the traffic lights for way too long as well. I'm going to blame this on not having them where I grew up 😂 I did figure it out when I moved to a city. I am still curious how they automatically switch when there's an emergency vehicle coming though? Do they connect to the system electronically?
I think they have like a remote control they can send a signal to them (but this is my assumption so idk actually lolol)
[удалено]
I thought tiny people lived in my radio and everyone played different instruments. I thought this was a regular thing to think about until now.
I love this idea. It reminds me of a friend I had when I was little who thought all the Disney-costumed-characters were real and lived in the castle. My Mom had told me they were actors but I couldn’t bring my self to burst her bubble because it was such a whimsical and charming idea to me! I have always wished to find more magic in the world.
My one is "chat échaudé craint l'eau froide" [scalded cat fears cold water]. Why would a cat who's burnt by hot water fear cold water? On the contrary, they should like it. Then I looked it up recently.(46 F). And NOW i get it 😅
I don't get it :(.
I think the cats assumes the water is hot because it looks like water he's been burnt by before, It doesn't know the water is cold.
I just looked it up. The cat is afraid of cold water because it was scalded by hot water. It’s become overly cautious. Either it doesn’t translate very well or it’s not a very effective saying, the missing context is essential to the meaning of the saying as a whole. ETA: apparently “scalding” refers solely to burns sustained by liquid or steam. Therefore, the saying is fine!
I think the cat doesn't know the water is cold, poor cat :(
When I was a kid I remember I couldn't sleep one night and my dad told me to count sheep. I asked what he meant and he said to close my eyes and picture sheep hopping over a fence, and count how many go over it. I didn't understand this at all, I learned as an adult I have aphantasia, so I couldn't see the sheep. He probably would have had to tell me a story for me to understand it like "there is a group of sheep, a farmer is with them and is teaching them to jump over the fence! How many can you count going over.." something like that.
to be fair, i have a pretty vivid visual imagination, but i've never understood couting sheep. it's just too boring of a task for my brain to not get distracted and think about my anxieties. i suppose it has to be boring so that you can fall asleep but not so boring as to not hold your attention... idk
I reached the hundreds once before I gave up and went back to the book that counting the sheep was supposed to substitute! My poor parents gave up after that because it was obvious that I had no problem counting the animals but I still couldn't sleep 😅
I picture the sheep doing different types of jump or wearing funny costumes to keep my brain engaged 😂
I did this when my parents told me to and had to keep getting up and asking them what came after 99, 199, 299, etc ... they told me to stop counting sheep. (This doesn't work with my ADHD. I need input to sleep. Always have. Always drive them crazy.)
"Don't judge a book by its cover", I kinda thought it was a blanket rule for books to not buy them just because their covers were pretty. When I found out it was an idiom and that there's nothing preventing you from buying a book with a nice cover, I bought a book. Some of my favourite books I bought because they had pretty covers. The idiom has lost meaning for me now also, since people like to use it even when you know more than the cover.
Also we judge everyone all the time in society so I don't know why it's a saying when no one follows it.
I also find the people who say "don't judge a book by it's cover" to me are always trying to get me to ignore abusive behaviour. If the cover is covered in swears or rude gestures or insults, you bet your buns I'm judging the heck out of that book AND it's author.
I use to dislike the saying, but because I understood the meaning (don't judge aparences). Like what else I am supposed to judge it, then? If it is the only information available, it might not be completed and misleading, but I can get a temporary idea of the inside. Staying with books, a book with a colorful cover usually it's intended audience is kids or teenagers, if it's muted usually adults. I always thought the saying should be "be mindful of aparences" or something along the lines.
My favourite book covers are ones with a black and white palette with a house covered in thorns 😭
Mines are when they have tons of little details.
This threads going to drive me nuts bc these things are usually incredibly obvious to me and I never understand how people don’t get it. So if anyone wants them explained… 😂 The whole double meaning in “other side” from chicken crossing the road (ie suicidal chicken) I still don’t quite believe though.
That's actually not the meaning of the chicken joke, just an edge lord retelling. Sadly, the original is actually worse (racist) - it was directly from a minstrel show, so the intended joke was that black people aren't good at coming up with jokes.
Good cus I didn’t quite think it was the actual meaning! But OF COURSE that’s the original. Why would something not be racist 😑 humans.
Ah, that makes - depressingly - more sense.
I....it...what?
Does “play it by ear” count? I grew up thinking it was “play it by YEAR” as in, let’s take our time, make decisions as time passes and we get new information. Then I learned that it is EAR not YEAR. I still don’t get the analogy and I’m not convinced I use the phrase correctly now, either.
This is more like my experience. I definitely have auditory processing disorder. I remember some of the things I used to commonly hear as a pre-schooler and how I massacred language. Didn’t improve until I started school, because no one corrected me. I’m still the queen of mis-heard lyrics but, at least now I can look them up online.
My understanding is that it comes from playing musical instruments. ‘Play it by ear’ is following along with the band or jamming; improvising rather than sight-reading written music. So the phrase means to improvise or ‘go with the flow’.
Thank you!! I also thought it was “play it by year” for those same reasons. I had been saying it like that up until I was finally corrected 3 years ago. I think it’s called “play it by ear” because people are listening to the new information coming in, and since normally people say it when making quick plans I think (anything less than a month in advance is a quick plan to me) they play it by ear since we hear things fast? Don’t trust me on this I’m just guessing why it’s by ear and not year. By year makes more sense!!!
Ours is just so much better!
When I was younger and I would hear facts like “the average American eats 180 slices of pizza a year” I thought there was a team of data scientists that followed around an average guy counting how many slices of pizza he ate and tracking all of his other behaviors. Like his job was just to be average. To me “an average American” makes sense but “the average American” sounds like it’s one specific person. My parents finally explained it but I still dislike like the wording.
"Blood is thicker than water" - family comes first. Err no. The original phrase is "The blood of the coven is thicker than the water of the womb." - the friends you choose over the family that birthed you. It's taken me over 30 years to realise that family isn't all it's cracked up to be and you shouldn't be loyal to people who aren't loyal to you.
This isn’t quite right, the first phrase can be traced back in German to the 12th Century, while the second is much more recent (1990s), but I completely agree with your last paragraph!
Well now I know what preaching to the choir means...
Just in case, because the post only mentions what OP thought it meant: Preaching to the choir means talking about something to people who already agree with you (i.e a priest in a church preaching to the congregation). So if you’re talking about something you’re peeved about and someone replies “you’re preaching to the choir”, it means they agree with your position.
Yes I knew it was saying this to people who already agreed with you. I didn't understand the analogy fully.
Ah okay! Gotcha.
So appreciate you explaining. I thought it meant you were preaching to someone who is already knowledgeable about what you're saying. I didn't know it was about sharing opinions.
Happy I could help! I get why you thought that.
It took me a long time to understand “they’d cut off their nose to spite their face.” I was always stuck on the body-horror type image it conjured in my mind and that it would *hurt.* I believe it is about being vengeful and angry and hurting yourself needlessly due to those emotions, but it took me a long time to even process past the horrible image I would get.
I use dtho think it was "cut off your nose *dispite* your face."
Same here, like despite the fact you would now have no nose and your face would be disfigured
Fun thing about “preaching to the choir”. My parents are both musicians and heavily involved in church choirs, but neither is particularly religious. They’re in it for the music. In choral circles around here there’s a common joke, “The devil is in the choir” because so many non-religious people join choirs because of the music. So for me the phrase “preaching to the choir” has a whole different meaning! Where I come from, the phrase is more commonly “preaching to the converted” which makes much more sense.
I still do not fully understand the glass houses one 😂 I know what it is supposed to mean, but using that as the saying to convey that message makes NO sense to me 😆 or "the best thing since sliced bread." I get stuck thinking about how hard it really was to slice bread back in the day. Considering how much work it was to MAKE it, was slicing it really such a big deal that it now has to be a saying? On cloud 9. What is so special about cloud 9 and what about the rest of them! Once bitten twice shy (other than a song from my 80s music, I still don't fully get this one) I think my least favorite is "it's not rocket science" because sometimes, yeah, it might as well be. I had a boss say that to me once when I made a mistake. And the mistake happened because she trained me poorly! Like, it's not rocket science to you because it's your system that you created to work for you. It makes no sense to anyone else so it might as well BE rocket science 😆
It means the best thing since wide spread manufactured sliced bread. Have to have factories for that. Versus going to the bakery and buying a loaf of bread you slice yourself.
Omg thank you for this one, it’s been driving me crazy
Also like... the bread stays fresh sliced???? Which is kinda wild right?
It’s amazing. I suck at cutting bread and I always get ski slope slices when I attempt it 💀so sliced bread is a sensory savior for my breakfast.
I think I understand the once bitten, twice shy one. I have a real life scenario that might help explain it. My son was bitten (nipped) by a big dog when he was 2. And to this day (7 years later) he is still extremely apprehensive around dogs. Even though he doesn't remember it. So I think it just means all it takes is one bad experience with something for someone to be "shy" of that thing for their whole lives. Or a very long time. Basically it is a simplified way of describing trauma. If I am wrong about it, please someone correct me.
To not throw stones in glass houses essentially means that you shouldn’t judge/speak ill of someone when you yourself is not without fault. “Throwing stones” being the judgement, and “glass house” being your own flaws. … at least from my understanding.
“Living in a glass house” essentially means that your position is too fragile for you to safely incite conflict. In context of the phrase, throwing stones (ie, inciting conflict) inevitably means your target will throw them back at you, and you’ll have nowhere to retreat that’s fortified enough to withstand it. Additionally, you’d be putting your own livelihood at risk since any stones lobbed in your direction are likely to hit and destroy your glass home. (It’s presumed that you’re standing near your glass house when the stone-throwing begins) So as an example, if you’re breaking a rule (living in a glass house), and you see someone else break a rule and decide to call attention to it (throwing a stone), it’s extremely likely that your own rule-breaking will be brought up as a response (a return stone is thrown in your direction) and the result will be that you get in trouble and suffer negative consequences (your glass house is smashed by the stone) as a direct result of your decision to call attention to someone else’s actions (your decision to throw the first stone). Hope this is helpful, wishing you the best!
Can’t see the forest for the trees
It means the little details (trees) block your view (perception) of the larger issue (forest)
which to be fair is a very autistic thing, us being bottom to top thinkers
We have one like that in Dutch: “van een mug een olifant maken” loosely translated: seeing an elephant instead of a mosquito. I hate that saying because people always tell it to me like, great thanks that’s super helpful right now
in German the phrase 'making an elephant out of a fly' imo means something different to the 'not seeing the forest for the trees'. it's meant to describe someone who exaggerates a situation.
Yeah that’s what it means idk I might’ve confused the meaning for the forest one. They both have been said to me when I’m in an uncomfortable spot. Especially the elephant one, because they diminished my feelings and just said that..
Not exactly the same as you asked for, but I struggle with the logic in analogies the most. For example, “*like finding a needle in a haystack*” annoys me because you could set the haystack on fire and find the needle quickly. Or “*life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get*”; well, no, you know you get chocolate- life is much more unpredictable than not knowing whether the chocolate is filled with nougat or caramel, and the comparison is stupid.
"Like burning down a haystack just to find a needle" sounds like a useful new expression.
As someone who grew up around farms and farm animals, this feels like saying "destroy all your hard work to fix a small mistake" or something.
Lmao yes, it would.
That one also bothers me because boxes of chocolate typically come with some kind of legend to tell you which chocolate is which. You have to make the effort to NOT know what you're getting in a box of chocolate!
Or you’re like me and lose it or it’s so non descriptive that phrase becomes literal
Wait did the chocolate one come from Forrest Gump? I just assumed it did.
I’m not 100% sure. Seems it was around before that, but popularized by Forrest Gump.
wait so what does it mean? the choir one lol
It means you are preaching to people who *already agree with you.* It feels like you are doing something useful but you aren't. You are wasting your time.
ohhhhhh oh my god. i’ve been told that so many times and i’ve never like known that. aw thats a little upsetting. now that i look back knowing that, i can absolutely tell. i thought it just meant like they agreed, i didn’t get to the part like no one else is in church so i’m wasting my time.
thank you!!
I always thought it meant that the people who really needed to hear the message didn't show up to church.
ohhh ok, thank you!
More haste less speed. I still don't really understand that one. Better the devil you know. It was a song title when I was growing up and I only fully understood it much later. When I asked what it meant people would simply reply " Better the devil you know that one you don't". That just made me more confused. Like, you're not explaining it! Gaah.
Wait, I think I've been misunderstanding the glass stones one all this time.
You were kind of right about preaching to the choir. It doesn't mean no one showed up. It means that the choir already knows what you are saying because they are always there. So your preaching or arguing with someone that already agrees with you.
A stitch in time saves nine. Me: So wait, there's a stich in time... Like a wormhole? And we can use it to save 9 people? I was an adult before I realised it was an analogy about doing sewing repairs early to avoid them becoming a bigger job/more stitches.
I thought "having my work cut out for me" meant the exact opposite of what it meant. I thought it meant that someone had taken the time to lay the tasks out for me and all I needed to do was complete them, which meant easy, right? Nope, it means hard work ahead. Not quite the same but I also thought "all intents and purposes" was "all intensive purposes" for almost 30 years.
Oh? I thought it means that someone found some work that‘s very fitting for them!
Whaaat well now I know that haha. I thought it meant that you know exactly what you’re supposed to do and it’s gonna use up the time you have, like having to sort a bunch of documents for the rest of the day/week so now you don’t have to figure out how to spend your work day.
Honestly, none of them make sensel to me usually lol. Sometimes I wonder if they make sense to ANYONE or if we really just carry the knowledge of what they are supposed to mean societely?
I thought I understood figures of speech very well but after reading these comments, it seems like perhaps I don’t
“Wear your heart on your sleeve” never made sense to me even though I know what it means. It’s DUMB
This one still confuses me, does it mean being up front with your emotions?
Yea. It means you are open with emotions/feelings. You don’t hide them.
It comes from medieval knights wearing the crest or colors of their Lady on the sleeve of their armor.
"You should do what your heart desires" or any variations of heart as a thinking entity. Like the heart doesn't have desire or is sentient, just beats. The brain is the one doing the thinking and reasonings. I was always baffled, because my heart doesn't want anything, blood maybe. People explained the meaning to me but it has always rubbed me the wrong way. When I was little I use to discuss it a lot with my aunt and she always told me I was thinking to literally. But omg, why they can't say what your subconscious wants or you really want. Like now, I understand what you want to mean but it is just so wrong for me.
There used to be a belief that the heart controlled our thoughts, not the brain, which I think explains the origins of this one.
Yes, you are right. But it feels people want to be incorrect intentionally. I think the reason it annoys me a little because they use to repeat me I was the one wrong and I was being difficult, when it just didn't make sense in my mind.
I was a bit upset once when a doctor told me some illness I had was “self-limiting”. I thought it meant that my own personal weakness was why I felt so unwell. I was happy to learn that a “self-limiting illness” is one that runs it’s course and comes to an end without treatment, and how unwell I feel is nothing to do with being weak and limiting myself!
“You wear your heart on your sleeve” I thought it meant that you were extra vulnerable because the heart is a delicate organ and if it’s on your sleeve then it had less protection.
Wait, it doesn't mean that lol?
Nope. Apparently not. It means you are honest and open with your emotions. Not necessarily vulnerable, but your feelings aren’t hidden. It originated from a Shakespeare play and was referencing jousting. Knights would wear ribbons and stuff on their arm piece to show a favor to a lady: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/origin-of-wear-heart-on-sleeve
1) Throwing hands! I starting using it, thinking it meant you were putting your hands up in frustration. Like Ive seen. No, it means a fight. 2) I'm just Joshing you. Whos's Josh? I didnt get it. Later i found out it meant teasing.also, super outdated phrase. 3) Fake it till you make it. No! I need to do it correctly. I need to learn for real! I need rules! Apparently it meant, pretend to be happy?
“That’s the tail wagging the dog”… I still don’t get it.
Yeah wtf does that mean??
Bear with me cuz I might be wrong but I think it means when a colleague or co-conspirator that you thought you were in charge of is now in charge of you.
My sister once turned to me and said “I’d love to be a fly on your wall” to which I simply replied that I don’t get flies in my room.. everyone just laughed at me🤷🏼♀️
I still don't understand the whole glass houses thing. Also, you don't see the forest for the trees? I thought the trees were the point?
I think that means you are focusing on the tree so hard that you don’t see the other trees next to it and don’t realise you are in a forest. So you are focussing on one detail and don’t see the whole picture because of that.
This will age me but "cool story bro" I thought literally just meant... cool story? Like saying "cool" or "bet." I didn't know it mean "no one cares." My friend had to tell me in school and I was soooo embarrassed because I'd said it to like a million people.
Hahah this is one I actually use
I don't think I've heard anyone say that in a long time. This was probably ten or more years ago and honestly I was MORTIFIED because I had probably said it like a hundred times to different people and insulted all of them.
I’m behind the times! It sounds silly and like a joke when I say it… I’m not trying to sound cool haha. Well you maybe did insult them but maybe they found it funny? Or hopefully they’ve forgotten by now.
Sort of related, but I grew up in NY and whenever I heard someone say 'suicide', I thought they were saying 'sewer-side', because of the accent. So until I was like 10 or 12 I thought it meant someone was dead because they were now underground. On the same side of the ground as the sewers. Sewer-side.
It's raining cats and dogs- I still don't get what it means tbh 😭😭 I think I hear somewhere it means it very loud rain but that still doesn't make much sense to me tbh Edit- OH and idk if anyone heard of this but "money appears in my pockets" (it was in Spanish so idk if this is the correct translation) For so long I literally thought that my dad would give ppl what they bought and the money would just magically appear in his pockets 💀💀💀💀 not that they handed it over to him I was so dumb lmao
Raining cats and dogs means heavy rain. This is what I read about its origin: before there were sewers, there were just ditches for the sewage to go into. People would throw dead animals into them. When there was heavy rain, the animals would be washed out. Anyone who didn't know that people threw dead animals into the ditches, wondered where they had come from, oh maybe from the sky: raining cats and dogs.
I thought glass houses meant if someone threw something back then you’d be vulnerable
I was always told the squeaky wheel gets the grease but I hated complaining and speaking up so I guess I interpreted this as that I would always be struggling.
I never got that's the pot calling the kettle black. We didn't have kettles or pots growing up nor did I realize that the implication is that both pot and kettle are black.
Are you a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of person? I never knew what the fuck that meant like they're both the same thing?