Phrases you've never understood.

[crudus]

"Exception that proves the rule" ...Do what?

"A picture is worth 1000 words". That's fine, but how much is a word worth? My theory is they are worth nothing as the market appears to be supersaturated with them.

It means that you can convey with a picture what it could take 1000 words to convey (1000 being an arbitrary number, seeing as you like to think everything it literal as possible ) - "A picture is worth 1000 words" worth of explanation.

I was just taking a literal approach for comedic effect. I don't actually think you could take a few picture into a bank and exchange it for thousands of words.

 

[navyjeff]

3) "There are no atheists in Foxholes" - a blatant lie. There are quite a few. Look up the stats yourself if you don't believe me.

I propose that there are only atheists and doubters in foxholes. True believers believe that bullets cannot hurt them unless it the will of their god. Therefore, only people who do not have such faith would actually be in a foxhole, away from bullets.

 

[adragonofgold]

Last place I looked.
or
If it had been a snake it would have bit me.

 

[Knife]

"Exception that proves the rule" ...Do what?

Lets take the rule "People are assholes" for example. Now you may go out there in to the world and find a genuinely nice guy who never did anything bad in his entire life and say something along the lines of "Here is your exception, a person who isn't an asshole and as such the rule is incorrect". The response would be "Yes, this person might not be an asshole at all, but just how many people did you encounter on your way to finding this guy? Ten? Hundred? Thousand? And they were all assholes, so it makes this guy the minority, so the rule is correct". The rule "People are assholes" doesn't mean "All people are assholes", simply "Most people are assholes". The term exception already implies that the counter example you may find is a very small minority, something rather rare. Since the example against the rule is a small minority it means that the examples for are the large majority and as such the rule "Most/Generally/Average/etc..." is correct. This saying does not apply for rules of the form "All/None...". Also if the counter examples are widely spread and not a rarity then they are not exceptional and the saying wouldn't apply in this case either.

 

[Burningsok]

"have your cake and eat it too." If I have a cake, it's because I'm going to eat it.

So... Go crazy.

You don't understand it because it's being said wrong. The phrase is- "You can't eat you're cake and have it too'. Because once you eat the cake, you no longer have it.

I remember as a child my sister burst into tears and my dad said "if you don't be quiet i'll give you something to cry about".

I always took it to mean that the speaker was going to smack/hit the person crying, usually because they were crying over something inconsequential.

When in Rome!

I believe that the saying was "When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Meaning that you should observe and follow the basic customs and traditions of whatever country/city/state/etc. you are visiting.

OT: Touch wood. Are trees Satanists now and must be avoided so fate doesn't come after you?

Touching, or knocking on wood, I'm fairly positive, is a tradition/superstition left over from Druids or other nature worshipers. Knocking on wood was most likely to scare off any mischievous/ evil spirits

knocking on wood... hmmm. Mighty Mighty Bosstones

 

[twistedmic]

If it had been a snake it would have bit me.

It means that what you were looking for was right in front of you, or out in the open in clear sight and you had walked right by it several times. If you stand right in front of a snake, or walk back and forth in front of it, odds are it's going to bite you.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

_____ Was all but ____

Example: The village was all but destroyed.

Translation: The village was destroyed.

But wait, I thought it was all but destroyed? No?

What is this I don't even....

I think it's supposed to mean the village had everything bad happen to it that could have happened, but it wasn't completely destroyed.

yeah this.

gosh people..stop taking things at face value so much, you might actually enjoy life/listening to people.


OT:

I don't really have any..if the persons point is gotten across i could care less

(please trolls, i know what i just did right there so keep your rage meters down)

 

[crudus]

Lets take the rule "People are assholes" for example. Now you may go out there in to the world and find a genuinely nice guy who never did anything bad in his entire life and say something along the lines of "Here is your exception, a person who isn't an asshole and as such the rule is incorrect". The response would be "Yes, this person might not be an asshole at all, but just how many people did you encounter on your way to finding this guy? Ten? Hundred? Thousand? And they were all assholes, so it makes this guy the minority, so the rule is correct". The rule "People are assholes" doesn't mean "All people are assholes", simply "Most people are assholes". The term exception already implies that the counter example you may find is a very small minority, something rather rare. Since the example against the rule is a small minority it means that the examples for are the large majority and as such the rule "Most/Generally/Average/etc..." is correct. This saying does not apply for rules of the form "All/None...". Also if the counter examples are widely spread and not a rarity then they are not exceptional and the saying wouldn't apply in this case either.

Here is what I hear when I hear someone say this: Ignore that thing that disproves my theory; it only proves my theory!

There are exceptions to every rule. At best they are an anomaly that can be ignored, and worst prove there is no rule. In the "people are assholes" example, Gandhi is an exception yes, but the existence of Gandhi doesn't prove people are assholes.

 

[floppylobster]

"Wow, just wow."

You've already said 'wow' by itself, now you've added 'just' and repeated it. If you really wanted to say just wow, then you would have just said 'wow' and been done with it.

 

[twistedmic]

'Another one bites the dust.'

Why are you eating thousands of fabric particles and billions of dead skin cells? That shit can induce asthma. Dangerous, very dangerous.

Aside from being a Queen song, 'Another one bites the dust' is a way of saying someone just died, i.e. fell to the ground, bit the dust.

 

[Knife]

Lets take the rule "People are assholes" for example. Now you may go out there in to the world and find a genuinely nice guy who never did anything bad in his entire life and say something along the lines of "Here is your exception, a person who isn't an asshole and as such the rule is incorrect". The response would be "Yes, this person might not be an asshole at all, but just how many people did you encounter on your way to finding this guy? Ten? Hundred? Thousand? And they were all assholes, so it makes this guy the minority, so the rule is correct". The rule "People are assholes" doesn't mean "All people are assholes", simply "Most people are assholes". The term exception already implies that the counter example you may find is a very small minority, something rather rare. Since the example against the rule is a small minority it means that the examples for are the large majority and as such the rule "Most/Generally/Average/etc..." is correct. This saying does not apply for rules of the form "All/None...". Also if the counter examples are widely spread and not a rarity then they are not exceptional and the saying wouldn't apply in this case either.

Here is what I hear when I hear someone say this: Ignore that thing that disproves my theory; it only proves my theory!

There are exceptions to every rule. At best they are an anomaly that can be ignored, and worst prove there is no rule. In the "people are assholes" example, Gandhi is an exception yes, but the existence of Gandhi doesn't prove people are assholes.

Its not the exception itself but the fact that its an exception - exception means that counter examples are rare/small minority. The fact that Gandhi isn't an asshole doesn't prove that people are assholes, the fact that he is one out of 6 billions people on the planet (if we ignore time for now) does just that, as it shows that people who aren't Gandhi are assholes (add to Gandhi the rest of the counter examples and you're still in the minority hence it is an exception). It is not "Counter example proves the rule" - thats just non sensical, its "Exception proves the rule". By the sheer fact that its an exception (read : freak rare anomaly) the rule is proven correct.

 

[Sansha]

Have your cake and eat it is so simple.

You can either have a cake, or you can eat the cake.
If you eat it, you have no cake left.
If you save your cake and just have it in your hand, you can't eat it.

Having your cake and eating it too means you get to eat cake, but you still have a cake left afterwards.


What is so confusing about that?

There's not much else you can do with a cake, except maybe hide in one if you're a stripper.
- Yahtzee

 

[Dawns Gate]

"It was in the last place I looked."

Really? You didn't keep looking after you found it?*
*Sarcasm

 

[Knife]

"It was in the last place I looked."

Really? You didn't keep looking after you found it?*
*Sarcasm

I do believe it is the shortened version of "It was in the last place I would've looked.", meaning it was in an unexpected place. People either don't know phrase or swallow the "would've" when they say it.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

"have your cake and eat it too." If I have a cake, it's because I'm going to eat it.

So... Go crazy.

Dammit . . that was going to be mine . . .

 

[tjcross]

When someone says they made a bee line for something. Have you ever seen the way a bee flies? It's not quickly and in a straight line.......

i think a b line means they went straight from point A (start) to point B (end)
ot fit as a fiddle has bugged, me so do fiddles exercise?

 

[Sight Unseen]

I don't know if its been said before, but the guy saying "all but destroyed" reminded me of it.

The village was razed to the ground.


I don't like this one because whenever I see razed I think of "raised" and being raised to the ground makes no sense. I know that's not actually what it means though, but it still bugs me.

 

[funguy2121]

INB4 "I could care less"

Umad?

Spoiler: Yup.

But yeah, that one is a head-scratcher when I hear people use it.

OT: "Right as rain." I have no idea why things could be "Right as rain."

Ugh. How do all of those Republicans jerk off to her? Is it like the Ed Hardy-wearing jocks spankin' it to Paris Hilton giving the worst blowjob in history - they tell themselves that she/it is hotter than she actually is? Oh well, Jon Stewart was right. She does have some sexy boots.

 

[dorkette1990]

OT: "Sick as a dog". To my knowledge, dogs are not known for being terribly ill...

I think that hearkens back to the days of the plague, when they were more (or just as) susceptible to it than humans. And it was their gait and general malaise that that expression arose from.

Oh! That makes so much sense! Thank you!

 

[EdwardOrchard]

"....and Bob's your uncle."

I heard it for the first time a couple of years ago and had no idea what the hell it meant. I've heard it quite a few times since then and still have no idea what these people are trying to say. They just seem to tack it on to the ends of sentences whenever they bloody well feel like it. And Bob's your uncle.