Cliches that make no sense

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MiriFr

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 5:45 pm

Fave wrote:

Easy as a pie....

Pie Making is not for beginners

Or piece of cake 🍰
Yum
Maybe it’s being sarcastic?

zaq

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 5:49 pm

Not enough room to swing a cat: I'd think you need a LOT of room to swing a cat--and to get out of the way when you let go!

chanatron1000

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 5:51 pm

Fave wrote:

Easy as a pie....

Pie Making is not for beginners

Store bought crust, store bought filling

GLUE

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:00 pm

Many years ago in some country they would sell little pigs in bags, some scammers would put cats instead of a pig in the bag Letting the cat out of a bag meant that you were not scammed

singleagain

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:13 pm

preciousmommy wrote:

This one I heard an answer to, but I don't know if it's accurate.

Houses used to have thatched roofs, where cats and dogs would hang out. When it rained heavily, these animals would be falling off the roofs.

I always heard that deceased pets were left on the street with the trash and when the rain was really heavy it would push the bodies down the street as well.

singleagain

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:14 pm

GLUE wrote:

Many years ago in some country they would sell little pigs in bags, some scammers would put cats instead of a pig in the bag Letting the cat out of a bag meant that you were not scammed

This I heard also

singleagain

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:15 pm

corolla wrote:

Giving a cold shoulder.
My favorite one

I used to think it meant to turn your shoulder to someone, I.e. shut them out. It's actually referring to wives who literally left their husbands a "cold shoulder" of meat when they got home way past dinnertime.

This I also heard

I love idioms and origins I've read a lot of them in trivia books and today I found out YouTube show also sometimes has some interesting origins

imasoftov

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:18 pm

Fave wrote:

Easy as a pie....

Pie Making is not for beginners

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_easy_as_pie

The comparison is not related to making a pie, which is not an easy thing to do, but rather to eating a pie or having a pie. There are some claims that the phrase originated in the 1920s from the Indigenous New Zealand expression "pie at" or "pie on" from the Maori term "pai" which means "good", but it was used in the Saturday Evening Post of 22 February 1913, and in 1910 by Zane Grey in 1886 in "The Young Forester," and is probably a development of the phrase "like eating pie," first recorded in "Sporting Life". In 1855, the phrase, in a slight variation was published in the book called 'Which? Right or Left?' Here it was used as 'nice as a pie'.

banana123

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:19 pm

zaq wrote:

"Comparing apples and oranges" makes no sense as used to mean "comparing things that are so different they can't be compared." Apples and oranges most certainly can be compared as they are both edible fruit. You can compare worldwide distribution, number of different varieties, vitamins, fiber and calorie content, flavor, fragrance, accessibility, versatility, volume of juice produced per unit weight, shelf life, ease of growing from seed and lots more.

More logical would be to say you're comparing apples to bicycles, cholent to checkers, or muffins to mountain bikes.

Any other senseless cliches you can think of?

No, you misunderstood. Comparing apples to oranges means you're comparing something that is somewhat similar - it looks similar on the outside, to the ignoramus - but which in fact is quite different. Apples and oranges are both fruits, that's a fact. But they are not the same, or even similar. The phrase "comparing apples and oranges" means you're making a gezeira shava between the two, because they seem to you to be the same, when they aren't even similar.

Comparing apples to bicycles would be comparing something that has no similarity whatsoever - even in use, even in where it came from - and therefore only the biggest and most unashamed idiots would compare the two.

Last edited by banana123 on Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:21 pm; edited 2 times in total

imasoftov

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:19 pm

MiriFr wrote:

Or piece of cake 🍰
Yum
Maybe it’s being sarcastic?

Possibly from cakewalk, or the notion of facility that derives from many cakes having agreeable tastes, and hence being ‘easy’ to consume

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/piece_of_cake

singleagain

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 6:40 pm

Just thought of one

"Happy as a clam"

Are clams really that happy?

Happy as a clam is actually incomplete The full saying is " happy as a clam at high tide. "Why is the clam happy at high tide because it is covered and not exposed to predators. However, the phrase got shortened.

zaq

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 7:50 pm

GLUE wrote:

Many years ago in some country they would sell little pigs in bags, some scammers would put cats instead of a pig in the bag Letting the cat out of a bag meant that you were not scammed

Hence also the term "buying a pig in a poke" (a poke being a small bag), meaning "buying something without checking it out first."

PinkFridge

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 8:52 pm

What is it with cats?
Curiosity killed the cat. But satisfaction brought it back.

dena613

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 9:14 pm

Picking yourself up by your bootstraps
LOL, AOC

SuperWify

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 9:30 pm

singleagain wrote:

I always heard that deceased pets were left on the street with the trash and when the rain was really heavy it would push the bodies down the street as well.

Gross

🤢

Push them to where? My side of the street?

I don’t like “don’t throw out the baby with a bath water.” I know it had something to do with the fact that the whole family shared the same bath water and baby went last.
But honestly, did some parents in the Middle Ages try this??? Banging head

CPS anyone?

seeker

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 11:02 pm

banana123 wrote:

I understand it as measuring them both by the same yardstick. For example you can't say "the apple is still green so it's not as ripe as the orange" or "this orange must not be fresh anymore because it isn't crunchy"

perquacky

Thu, Oct 15 2020, 11:45 pm

There's a great podcast called "A Way with Words" where the hosts and call-in guests discuss some of the weird idioms that exist in the English language. They also talk about the unusual regional expressions people use depending on where they live in the US. Check it out. It's fascinating.
waywordradio.org

Radish

Fri, Oct 16 2020, 12:59 am

You look like a million dollars. In all green?
Don't stand on ceremony.

Redbird

Fri, Oct 16 2020, 2:20 am

"bite the bullet"

This one makes sense if you know the history. I've heard that this comes from when soldiers needed an amputation during the civil war, they would bite a bullet for the pain.

banana123

Fri, Oct 16 2020, 3:53 am

seeker wrote:

IOW, you make a gezeira shava as if they were the same thing. Which is what I wrote. Smile

(Maybe it wasn't clear what a gezeira shava is? It's one of the 13 midot shehaTorah nidreshet meihen, but maybe not everyone learned those?)

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