Sayings & phrases...W T F ?

[Easy 10]

During my pilgrimage this morning, I discovered why I should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Apparently, when buying a horse, the customer should always looks in its mouth to check its teeth. If its teeth are ok then the horse is deemed to be healthy. However, if the teeth are defective, it will have trouble chewing its food, which will inevitable lead to digestive problems in the future, and you'll end up with a poorly horse on your hands. Good, sound advice.

However, if the horse is a gift then don't worry about it, because you're not actually paying for the horse anyway. Just take the horse, don't bother looking in its mouth and if it dies, it dies (although personally, I'd still be concerned about the veterinary invoice and/or the horse disposal fee's).

Anyone else know some pointless sayings and phrases that you just don't understand ? I've got a few which have been bothering me. I need some reassurance that I am not the only one who is often plagued and perplexed by these metaphorical conundrums.

For starters, how exactly can you get on with someone like a house on fire ?

Why, or how, can something be pie in the sky ?

Why is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush ?

 

[CHAPPERS]

For starters, how exactly can you get on with someone like a house on fire ?

Roaringly?

 

[tedebear]

something about mohammeds and mountains.....how the dickens do you move a mountain? and frankly what good is a mountain going to do for you?

 

[Easy 10]

Re: Re: Sayings & phrases...W T F ?

Roaringly?

You don't get along "roaringly" with someone though, do you ? Thats meaningless.

Equally, how can you "get along famously" with someone ? Who makes these things up ?

 

[CHAPPERS]

Have you EVER just accepted something as being the way it is??

f*** SAKE.

You and my grandad would have got along ROARINGLY.

 

[BrightonDom]

And how the hell can you be "on top of the world"?

 

[Perry's Tracksuit Bottoms]

For starters, how exactly can you get on with someone like a house on fire ?

The original meaning of the phrase was that you got on with someone very quickly. In those days houses were made of timber and caught fire quickly...

 

[Hungry Joe]

I think you've got the bird one the wrong way round; it's a bird in bush is worth two in the hand. I believe it comes from an old Zen saying to do with things being in their natural place.

 

[Perry's Tracksuit Bottoms]

Why, or how, can something be pie in the sky ?

That's from a 1906 American folk song "The Preacher and the Slave"...

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

 

[D'Angelo Saxon]

Happy as Larry.

Who the f*** was Larry?

 

[Scarface]

And how the hell can you be "on top of the world"?

If your at the North Pole?

 

[Scarface]

Happy as Larry.

Who the f*** was Larry?

A very happy man apparently!

 

[Northstander]

"You cant have your cake an eat it!"

Well excuse me, I have just finished my lunchbreak and bought some fruit cake for me pudding AND I have damn well eaten the bleedin lot so BOLLOX!!!

 

[Easy 10]

Have you EVER just accepted something as being the way it is??

No Chappers. I am cursed with a questioning mind. It prods and pokes me with incessant queries at things it doesn't understand. Theories are tossed and turned and closely examined to find their meaning. During the day I can suppress it to an extent, but at night the voices never stop. They never stop.

I am plagued by with endless insignificant ramblings, which I am then compelled to pass on to NSC. Its a kind of therapy - but I know it will never, ever be a cure.

 

[Virgo's Haircut]

"It goes like shit off a shovel"

Is shit especially fast when coming off a shovel?

 

[Mr Popkins]

The Saying- "Back to square one" comes from football radio commentry Pre- Television,

The Radio Times used to print a grid of a football pitch and their commentrty used to say things like , "the ball is now played from square 4 to square 7" so you could get an idea of where the ball was on the pitch

so when the ball was at square one, (which was the
goal-Keeping square) , they would have to start their attack all over again,

Hence , Back to square one

 

[Perry's Tracksuit Bottoms]

Happy as Larry.

Who the f*** was Larry?

A 'larrikin' was, in 1860, a word for a 'mischeivous youth'...

 

[Northstander]

Just thought of another...
"The grass is always greener on the otherside"

Well not in my back garden pal!!

My back garden does have grass but on the other side of my fencing is a road, how that F*** is that greener!!!??"

 

[Bigtomfu]

A friend of mine at uni had a dutch mum who couldnt get to grips with them either. she used to make up her own so that phrases such as between a rock and a hard place became between a brick and a wall!!

 

[Weezle]

"You cant have your cake an eat it!"

Well excuse me, I have just finished my lunchbreak and bought some fruit cake for me pudding AND I have damn well eaten the bleedin lot so BOLLOX!!!

That always strikes me as a weird one as well - what's the point in having the f***ing cake if you can't eat it?