Worgen said:
I guess 'Hold down the fort' doesn't make sense but sounds alright.
Yes I saw that video about '_____ letter to America' xD
Sure it does. Hold in that phrase is like hold in the phrase, "hold this position." Holding down the fort would be an order to defend it as a garrison, so the phrase means, "take care of this place while I'm gone," and is also a farewell.
JourneyThroughHell said:
I would go with "could care less", too. There might be a reason why some people say it like that, I can't know, but I still just doesn't sound right.
Stephen Pinker discussed this in his book The Language Instinct as an aside, when he was criticizing "language mavens." His explanation was that some people missed its sarcastic tone, based on where syllables are stressed and the falling intonation.
Have one's cake and eat it too. Have as in possess, not consume. See, if I eat the cake, I can't have it any more; it's gone. I could recover it after eating it, but what I'll have is certainly not what I'd call cake.
The exception that proves the rule. This one annoys me because it gets misused and is based on an archaic definition of prove. It means the exception that
challenges the rule, not the exception that confirms the rule. It's proof like the Provings in DA:O or in Aberdeen Proving Grounds. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," as in, the correct test for a pudding is how it tastes.
I'd say "All but X" is the phrase I don't get. Yeah, sure, you could twist it to mean "It went as far as it could before X," or something like that, but it's just an odd phrase. And yes, the meaning is clear, but it still sounds odd.