Sayings you dont understand

[AngelSephy]

This is more just a mistake rather than an actual saying, but I *really* don't understand why some people feel that the phrase "I could care less" (rather than "I couldn't care less") actually makes sense.

David Mitchell explains it better than I.
<YOUTUBE=om7O0MFkmpw>

I think what it's implying is that while the person honestly couldn't care less for whatever may be undesirable, the use of "I could careless" may be an emphasis on this. Or maybe a nicer way of saying the aforementioned?

 

[Shoqiyqa]

A stitch in time saves nine. no idea wtf this means.

Fix that damaged seam now before the rest of it gives way and you end up having to sew the whole tunic back together.

 

[gamerguyal]

When in Rome...

I'm sorry nobody has seen Anchorman and did not get my joke.

In the movie Anchorman: The Legend of Tom Burgundy, he is told by his attractive co-worker Veronica who he is showing the city, "When in Rome...". He does not know what this means and explains that he has never heard it before. Veronica then says that the full expression in "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." He still does not understand because he is an idiot.

Ron tries to later use the saying, but since the context is completely wrong Veronica tells him that the phrase doesn't really apply to the situation.

Jokes are less funny when you have to explain them.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." No. Seriously, what the hell?

Didn't we just do this in another thread? You judge the age and thus the worth of a horse by examining its teeth, but if someone gives you a horse you should just be glad of the free horse, whether it's one year old or five, because HEY! FREE HORSE!

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People who think that people are "incorrect" when they say "could care less" necessarily have a fairly tenuous understanding of how language actually works.

Your MOTHER's got a fifth legendary carbuncle in the refrigerator!

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However, if you say that something is "The Dog's Bollocks," that is seen as high praise. Not exactly sure why.

It's a simplified form of "standing out like a gun-dog's bollocks," meaning, thus simplified, outstanding.

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Viola!

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"less haste more speed"
wait, what?

I've heard this one the other way around: "More haste, less speed."

What it means is that by hurrying too much and making lots of mistakes, you actually make progress at a slower rate.

Trying to build a bird box, you quickly draw out all the pieces you need and cut them, then find out you've got it wrong and have to start again. If you'd just taken the few seconds to get the drawing part right, you'd have saved yourself several minutes of getting another plank and sawing that up.

In the rush to set off to the party, you forget the gifts. You have to turn round and go back for them, which takes a lot longer than making sure you picked them up before leaving the house.

Trying to impress the pretty girl a week before the end of the school year, you skate into a lamppost and rebound into the path of a car. She sleeps with the romantic geek while you're retaining your virginity in hospital.

I think you heard it as advice whereas I heard it as a comment.

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"Same difference" is a combination of "same thing" and "big difference." I have no idea what smacktard decided that it was a good idea to go around saying it, but I do know that I first began hearing it several years ago and had never heard it beforehand. Somebody started it, it spread like the plague, and that person needs to be backhanded.

http://www.goblinscomic.com/01282011/

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But it's the emphasis on could. I could care less, it's entirely within the realm of possibility, but I already care so little that it is an unlikely eventuality.

No. It's just wrong. Really.

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I think what it's implying is that while the person honestly couldn't care less for whatever may be undesirable, the use of "I could careless" may be an emphasis on this. Or maybe a nicer way of saying the aforementioned?

No, really, it's just WRONG.

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Nevermind. I see now. That.bloody.edit.button. I have never seen someone edit into an old post though... ever. I feel stupid now

Took you long enough.

 

[Kiefer13]

This is more just a mistake rather than an actual saying, but I *really* don't understand why some people feel that the phrase "I could care less" (rather than "I couldn't care less") actually makes sense.

David Mitchell explains it better than I.
<YOUTUBE=om7O0MFkmpw>

I think what it's implying is that while the person honestly couldn't care less for whatever may be undesirable, the use of "I could careless" may be an emphasis on this. Or maybe a nicer way of saying the aforementioned?

Except it's not. It doesn't mean the same thing, at all. It's just one of those silly little mistakes that's been repeated and perpetuated so much that some people seem to think that it's the correct phrase instead of an illogical malapropism.

 

[Brandon237]

How did you quote him if your post is above his 0.o I'm seriously scared here...

You need to have your forum health meter in the red to be able to do that.

Damnit, I'm not even green I'm so clean... Ah well, no time-travel for me
But honestly, how the hell? I have seen the escapist glitch... but that... damn.

I'm going to make you figure this out on your own, because that way you will facepalm way harder.

No, tell me, I am so confused, it said you posted that 4 minutes before 0.o That is... insanity. My mind is twisting on this one
Nevermind. I see now. That.bloody.edit.button. I have never seen someone edit into an old post though... ever. I feel stupid now

 

[LITE992]

"Greatest thing since sliced bread." What the hell's so great about bread slices???

Because sliced bread is the single greatest feat of human innovation.

 

[lumenadducere]

Except that "I could care less" still makes sense as a saying, just a different meaning. It's for when you have a tiny little bit of caring, but not much. For example, a tv show you watched a couple times and moderately enjoyed gets cancelled. You care very slightly. You could care less, but not much.

Only if you personally interpret it in that way, which makes it a highly subjective viewpoint, considering the phrasing. When just looking at the phrasing itself, it doesn't make sense because the statement is simply that you could care less. The degree of which is not specified or implied at all.

 

[gazumped]

"I've had it up to here"
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- I dunno....somewhere around that distance? I still don't get it..

I think the idea of this is that a person's so angry, they're about to boil over. Like a thermometer heating up with rage until it explodes at the top.

New and Improved.

Isn't this only used with updated versions of things? As in "this is a new version, and we've improved the product since the last version!"

A bit off topic, but 'Alls well that ends well' is supposed to be a kind of optimistic, happy feeling thing, whereas 'The end justifies the means' is some kind of evil way of saying that you sacrifice anything for your own end, though when you think about it, they both mean the same thing - that if everything has worked out by the end of the day, then the events of the day don't matter.

The difference here is that "All's well that ends well" suggests that it might have been a rocky journey, but it's over now and everyone's happy so no worries. "The ends justifies the means" suggests that the rocky journey was a product of someone doing something bad or questionable, like risking a load of people's lives in order to save some other people's lives, so everyone might be happy in the end but they're sure going to feel dodgy about that guy from then on.
Edit: To clarify that last one, the word "means" suggests there was reasoning and action behind the unpleasantness, whereas the other saying doesn't necessarily imply that the unpleasantness was anyone's fault.

 

[The Cheezy One]

A bit off topic, but 'Alls well that ends well' is supposed to be a kind of optimistic, happy feeling thing, whereas 'The end justifies the means' is some kind of evil way of saying that you sacrifice anything for your own end, though when you think about it, they both mean the same thing - that if everything has worked out by the end of the day, then the events of the day don't matter.

The difference here is that "All's well that ends well" suggests that it might have been a rocky journey, but it's over now and everyone's happy so no worries. "The ends justifies the means" suggests that the rocky journey was a product of someone doing something bad or questionable, like risking a load of people's lives in order to save some other people's lives, so everyone might be happy in the end but they're sure going to feel dodgy about that guy from then on.
Edit: To clarify that last one, the word "means" suggests there was reasoning and action behind the unpleasantness, whereas the other saying doesn't necessarily imply that the unpleasantness was anyone's fault.

Good point. I'll have to rethink my view on these sayings

 

[Jaythulhu]

*snip*

The term cracker in the American lexicon is a reference to a white person who could be a descendant of a slave owner. Slave owners used whips, and they would crack the whip. A cracker would be someone who cracks the whip.

Thank you. How... entirely inappropriate as a description for a white Aussie. We were convicts, not slave owners

 

[MrTiki]

Not necessarily. For example, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That is a rule. There is no exception to it, and yet it is still a rule. If there was an exception to it, then it would disprove the rule.

Tachyons

Tachyons are theoretical, as in they have not yet been found. If they were found though, it would indicate that conventional particle physics is incorrect and could lead to various paradoxes. Either way, I was simply using it as an example, even though, at least hypothetically, you are correct

 

[Lukeje]

Not necessarily. For example, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That is a rule. There is no exception to it, and yet it is still a rule. If there was an exception to it, then it would disprove the rule.

Nothing can be accelerated to faster than the speed of light. That's not to say that things which are already travelling faster than the speed of light can't travel faster than the speed of light, e.g. hypothesised

Tachyons

 

[WolfThomas]

Some of the explanations suggested in this thread for the exception that proves the rule while and interesting are actually wrong.

Wikipedia has a good summary (yeah I know, validity as a source, blah, blah)

The phrase is derived from the medieval Latin legal principle exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis ("the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted"), a concept first proposed by Cicero in his defense of Lucius Cornelius Balbus[1]. This means a stated exception implies the existence of a rule to which it is the exception. The second part of Cicero's phrase, "in casibus non exceptis" or "in cases not excepted," is almost always missing from modern uses of the statement that "the exception proves the rule," which may contribute to frequent confusion and misuse of the phrase.

Fowler's Modern English Usage gives the following example of the original meaning:

Special leave is given for men to be out of barracks tonight till 11.00 p.m.; "The exception proves the rule" means that this special leave implies a rule requiring men, except when an exception is made, to be in earlier. The value of this in interpreting statutes is plain.

In other words, a legal exception implies that something is normally not excluded.

[1] http://alt-usage-english.org/exception_proves.html

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

When people put "honestly" in front of a sentence. What have they been dishonest in the previous one? Do they normally lie everything they say?

 

[StBishop]

"Made to order"
It is meant to imply that the food is only cooked after you order it. Made to order, literally, means it is already made and then you can order it.
"Not made until you order it" would be a more apt saying

It's a matter or perspective. If you think made to measure, it's made to a measurement. Made to order means made to your order, ie. Cheeseburger with extra pickles. They make a cheeseburger to that order. (Even though you're crazy for wanting pickles.)

 

[Merkavar]

*snip*

The term cracker in the American lexicon is a reference to a white person who could be a descendant of a slave owner. Slave owners used whips, and they would crack the whip. A cracker would be someone who cracks the whip.

Thank you. How... entirely inappropriate as a description for a white Aussie. We were convicts, not slave owners

i always thought that black people needed a better insult for white people. like every other race seems to have a good insult for them but for white people the best seems to be cracker. that just seems lame to me.

 

[Jaythulhu]

*snip*

The term cracker in the American lexicon is a reference to a white person who could be a descendant of a slave owner. Slave owners used whips, and they would crack the whip. A cracker would be someone who cracks the whip.

Thank you. How... entirely inappropriate as a description for a white Aussie. We were convicts, not slave owners

i always thought that black people needed a better insult for white people. like every other race seems to have a good insult for them but for white people the best seems to be cracker. that just seems lame to me.

On the flip side of the same coin, mate, I've never understood the slur "******" either. Is it a bastardisation of Negro? Some other term condensed? For all the information available on the internet, some things are severely lacking in detail. Anyhoo, reckon ya could come up with a better slur for us whiteys? honkee and cracker are really... well... stupid, in my mind.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

On the flip side of the same coin, mate, I've never understood the slur "******" either.

******
1786, earlier neger (1568, Scot. and northern England dialect), from Fr. nègre, from Sp. negro (see Negro). From the earliest usage it was "the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks" [cited in Gowers, 1965]. But as black inferiority was at one time a near universal assumption in Eng.-speaking lands, the word in some cases could be used without deliberate insult. More sympathetic writers late 18c. and early 19c. seem to have used black (n.) and, after the American Civil War, colored person. Also applied by Eng. settlers to dark-skinned native peoples in India, Australia, Polynesia. The reclamation of the word as a neutral or positive term in black culture, often with a suggestion of "soul" or "style," is attested first in the Amer. South, later (1968) in the Northern, urban-based Black Power movement.

--Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

 

[Merkavar]

Not sure if its been metioned.

right as rain

rain is rarely right. its all messy getting blown in the wind causing floods etc