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Your least favorite idioms


poppy
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"Blood is thicker than water". Yes, heaven forbid we ever betray the arbitrary bonds of biological kinship!

 

I've grown much fonder of the original version once I heard it - "The blood of battle is thicker than the water of the womb". Yes. Yes, it is.

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"Hair-on-fire situation"

 

 

I am still trying to figure out how to communicate to my boss how much I hate that phrase, without making her think that I don't understand how important and urgent at times our work is.  It is important to me. Just not as important to me as not getting my scalp melted off my head.

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Can I do a set?  "He who hesitates is lost" BUT "All things come to those who wait"

 

Oh, cliches often come in matched pairs. "A brave man dies one death, a coward a hundred" BUT "Discretion is the better part of valor". "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" BUT "Out of sight, out of mind". "Birds of a feather flock together" BUT "Opposites attract".

 

So long as you don't view them as universal truths applicable to every situation, you can avoid the cognitive dissonance.

 

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'step up to the plate' when used in the UK.  We are not a baseball playing nation.  None of our national sports has a 'plate'.  It doesn't mean anything here but people (particularly politicians) have taken to saying it.

 

It would be like American politicians suddenly starting to say, 'You can't do that, it's not cricket!'

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"Hair-on-fire situation"

 

 

I am still trying to figure out how to communicate to my boss how much I hate that phrase, without making her think that I don't understand how important and urgent at times our work is.  It is important to me. Just not as important to me as not getting my scalp melted off my head.

 

LOL I don't think I've ever heard that one before. That would drive me bonkers!

 

There are a whole bunch that bother me, I just cant remember them at the moment. But I do remember that they bother me because the people who say them use them incorrectly.

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"I'm starving".....can't stand the phrase!

 

I correct dh and dc if they say it. They have never missed a meal unless sick or not hungry at meal time. If dh or dc have to wait more than an hour or two late for a meal (which is rare) they get annoyed. I get annoyed at them in return for not being okay with a food delay when food is in such abundance in our everyday lives. Dh has stopped complaining about a rare meal delay after my lecturing about it since he now agrees with my point. People actually do starve in real life! We are so spoiled (and blessed) to never have experienced true food deprivation.

 

I also don't like, "are you okay?" in situations where someone is obviously not okay (be it emotional or physical).

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It would be like American politicians suddenly starting to say, 'You can't do that, it's not cricket!'

 

We wouldn't, though, because our normal phrase is "It's not kosher" (despite the fact that few of us are Jewish). The two phrases are so similar in both composition and meaning that I doubt we'd import yours. Idioms rarely parse literally, and often are so old that they don't make much modern sense, as in "the cobblers children have no shoes". How many people say that and have no idea what a cobbler is or does!? The only way you'll purge "step up to the plate" is if you had another easy, pithy way to express that general concept.

 

/pedantic

 

Edit: Now I'm trying to figure out if English DOES have another idiom for that concept, and if not, whether we can steal one from another language or if it'd be better to neologize one.

 

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WHAT DO THOSE EVEN MEAN.

 

 

Things that happen that seem unexplainable are a "God thing"

 

Jesus with skin on means that you are acting as Christ would act by giving love, hugs, being there, etc......

 

I just don 't like either of the phrases.   They are used heavily by some Christian circles.

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Jesus with skin on means that you are acting as Christ would act by giving love, hugs, being there, etc......

 

.

Thank you for explaining that more. I've never heard that either and the skin on part sounded really ... Strange. :)

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"I'll keep an eye out" sounds less and less appealing each time I hear it. "I'll be on the lookout" sounds far better.

 

Regards,

Kareni

My youngest dd got confused by that one year, so now in our family lore everyone has to "take an eye out" usually for brightly lit Christmas decorations.

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/pedantic

 

Edit: Now I'm trying to figure out if English DOES have another idiom for that concept, and if not, whether we can steal one from another language or if it'd be better to neologize one.

 

I promise you that I can out-pedant you if pushed.  

 

In fact, we have the equally pithy 'step up to the crease' from cricket (example of metaphorical usage here).  But politicians and journalists have decided to use the baseball version instead.

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"I'm starving".....can't stand the phrase!

 

I correct dh and dc if they say it. They have never missed a meal unless sick or not hungry at meal time. If dh or dc have to wait more than an hour or two late for a meal (which is rare) they get annoyed. I get annoyed at them in return for not being okay with a food delay when food is in such abundance in our everyday lives. Dh has stopped complaining about a rare meal delay after my lecturing about it since he now agrees with my point. People actually do starve in real life! We are so spoiled (and blessed) to never have experienced true food deprivation.

 

I also don't like, "are you okay?" in situations where someone is obviously not okay (be it emotional or physical).

My very first exposure to The Onion was a "point/counterpoint" article they did between a teenage female and a young African child, titled "I'm So Starving".

 

I haven't used that idiom since. :p

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My very first exposure to The Onion was a "point/counterpoint" article they did between a teenage female and a young African child, titled "I'm So Starving".

 

I haven't used that idiom since. :p

 

Wow, that was a predictably depressing read.

 

My own "never say it again" moment was when we finished reading The Giver in middle school and we got to the part where Jonas is starving and freezing and musing on how he was hit for saying "I'm starving" as a child, and told he would never be starving, but - dramatic moment! - if he'd stayed he'd be starving for love and color and feelings, and his brother-figure would be dead anyway. Which still managed to make the point to me that saying you're starving when you're really not is a little obnoxious.

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"Bloom where you're planted" makes my skin crawl.

 

My RA chose this as our wing theme my sophomore year. Her narrow interpretation meant trying to be close friends with all 21 other girls. She was perturbed when I told her I came to school for an education and that interacting with classmates, students I tutored, and the 5 girls on my wing whose personalities were a good fit for mine was "blooming" too. I was "planted" in class and work and study sessions many hours each day. I tried to explain that 5 relationships with roots made more sense than 21 surfacy ones but she was aghast. Plus, how selfish was I for getting straight A's instead of devoting more time to these "friendships"! Yeah, that's exactly why I'm paying $22,000 a year...for forced "friendships" with 21 other random girls!

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"You need to think outside of the box" and "Get out of your comfort zone!" To me, it's just manipulative.

Guilty. I say this one to my kids all the time. Because their comfort zones are usually annoying and inconvenient to me :p

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"Bloom where you're planted" makes my skin crawl.

 

My RA chose this as our wing theme my sophomore year. Her narrow interpretation meant trying to be close friends with all 21 other girls. She was perturbed when I told her I came to school for an education and that interacting with classmates, students I tutored, and the 5 girls on my wing whose personalities were a good fit for mine was "blooming" too. I was "planted" in class and work and study sessions many hours each day. I tried to explain that 5 relationships with roots made more sense than 21 surfacy ones but she was aghast. Plus, how selfish was I for getting straight A's instead of devoting more time to these "friendships"! Yeah, that's exactly why I'm paying $22,000 a year...for forced "friendships" with 21 other random girls!

Your RA sounds like a nitwit. A well-meaning nitwit, but yeah. I think that phrase means something like, "find a way to thrive in the conditions you find yourself, even if they aren't of your choice." You did. She was wrong.

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Things that happen that seem unexplainable are a "God thing"

 

Jesus with skin on means that you are acting as Christ would act by giving love, hugs, being there, etc......

 

I just don 't like either of the phrases. They are used heavily by some Christian circles.

Ugh! The phrasing of first one makes me dry heave and the second one is just BIZARRE! Glad I haven't caught that one or I probably would have embarrassed myself with my first reaction, lol
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Me too! I say nearly all these detested phrases quite frequently! (LOL)

 

Oh well. I like my colorful language. :P

Yeah, I like my phrases too. It's always interesting to hear which ones pop up repeatedly on the most hated list

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My least favorite is 'drink the kool-aid'. I hear it in everyday conversation or at work, my mind immediately goes to a really, really horrible place.

 

What's yours?

 

Same here, that one is down right awful.

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Your RA sounds like a nitwit. A well-meaning nitwit, but yeah. I think that phrase means something like, "find a way to thrive in the conditions you find yourself, even if they aren't of your choice." You did. She was wrong.

Yep. There was no reasoning with her. And our hall was decorated with this phrase and potted plants so I got to spend a year rolling my eyes every time I walked in.

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My literal imagination is grossed out by skinned Jesus.

I don't mind "I'm starving", though. I sometimes tell my kids "I am the luckiest woman in the world " - just hyperbole.

Skinned Jesus is going to give me nightmares. I can't stop visualizing it!

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"It is what it is."

 

Well, I guess there's no point doing anything about it then.

 

Dh and I use this one in a cynical way when there's a situation that we're really not going to do anything about. When one says this the other follows up immediately with "I know, right?" :p

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"It is what it is."

 

Well, I guess there's no point doing anything about it then.

haha I just used this one today.  Child had his hockey cards spread out all over a table, his mom arrived to pick him up, he was griping about having to pick them all up and resort them all over again at home.  My response was "sorry buddy, it is what it is"

 

I use in in situations where it means "it can't be helped" not that one is refusing to do anything about it.  Another time I recently used it was at the bank.  I have recently been a fraud victim and had $633 stolen from my account.  The bank teller was apologizing repeatedly that they could not give me back the money until after the fraud investigation was complete.  I replied "not a problem, it is what it is"  Again not about not doing anything about it, but about it being out of my control to do so.  It can't be helped, they have a procedure to follow.

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