Idioms, Phrases, and Acronyms of the English Language

[notikoku]

This article is very useful to me. Thanks :")

 

[Huntn]

• 26May- Added Handbags at dawn (#24), Read the Riot Act (#25), Yuppie (#28), Six Ways from Sunday (#30)

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“Your mother’s a whore”

Origin: friends of children of prostitutes mocking them for their mother’s career.

Meaning: to denigrate one’s friend, jokingly, or when angered in traffic.

Some of the Slavic languages have a version of this ("son of a whore") as do some of the central Asian languages.

Mind you, I have long found it fascinating that while women are denigrated and insulted (culturally, linguistically) for selling their bodies (never mind that the market for such transactions never seems to suffer saturation), men who sell their souls do not attract anything like the same degree of cultural ire, contempt or opprobrium as expressed severely or otherwise in language.

I grew up hearing a lot about what people's Mothers are or do. A very tame version is Your mother wears combat boots.

 

[Huntn]

Heard it through the grapevine- The wires utilized in America's first telegraph stations oftentimes swooped and draped in twisted, random patterns. Professionals and onlookers alike believed the tangled masses resembled grapevines somewhat, eventually birthing a common idiom still used today. Especially in catchy songs by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles.
http://www.bachelorsdegree.org/2011/01/30/30-common-english-idioms-and-the-history-behind-them/

 

[AustinIllini]

I was told that rule of thumb referred to the maximum width of stick you could use to beat a slave. Horrible when you think about it.

I've heard that and the film "Boondock Saints" says it's about abusing your wife. Apparently, the actual origin is unclear.

 

[Huntn]

Pee in your Cheerios.
We know what it means. But for the life of me, I can't find its origin. Mr Google has been no help. All I know is that it has to be Cheerios, not any other cereal. Why? Because of the cheer in Cheerios.

Disrupt, pick a fight with you?

I found, which is not an official definition:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=peed in your cheerios

 

[0002378]

"Laughing all the way to the bank" (To make a large income easily, especially at the expense of others or by doing something that lacks significant merit.)

Ben Stiller doesn't care that, in all his movies, he's farting or pooping and out of toilet paper or working as a male nurse ... or more generally, making a fool of himself. He's laughing all the way to the bank.

Kim Kardashian doesn't care that she put her vagina on screen for the world to see. Her popularity skyrocketed, and she's laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[monokakata]

Just this morning I was joking with my partner about the phrase "gird your loins," mean to get ready for something (difficult or dangerous), and I told her about a fantastic meme I'd seen somewhere. It was easily found.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Just this morning I was joking with my partner about the phrase "gird your loins," mean to get ready for something (difficult or dangerous), and I told her about a fantastic meme I'd seen somewhere. It was easily found. View attachment 763403

That is brilliant. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Huntn]

Just this morning I was joking with my partner about the phrase "gird your loins," mean to get ready for something (difficult or dangerous), and I told her about a fantastic meme I'd seen somewhere. It was easily found. View attachment 763403

Mideveil Knights had metal cod pieces.

 

[Huntn]

Crickets- Used as a tame exclamation Crickets! But more often used as a description of a human reaction, that describes not the sound of a response, but the silence, avoiding the issue, with only crickets heard in the background.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/crickets
Used alone or in metaphorically descriptive phrases: absolute silence; no communication.
“Since then I have received no response, not a word... crickets.”

 

[Clix Pix]

Pee in your Cheerios.
We know what it means. But for the life of me, I can't find its origin. Mr Google has been no help. All I know is that it has to be Cheerios, not any other cereal. Why? Because of the cheer in Cheerios.

I have also seen a variation of this: "Piss in your cornflakes" -- meaning someone is in a bad mood, snapping at others, etc. "So who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?" is then inquired of the person in the foul mood. It is cited in the Urban Dictionary and the Free Dictionary....

 

[elf69]

pee on your parade.

to bring someone down from a high or happy moment.
usually said when the happy person is happy due to something they have done and someone points out an error in it forcing them to correct or restart the whole thing.

 

[LizKat]

I also know Bohica!, from the US Navy, but don’t know how widespread that is.
Bend over, here it comes again, a term with an obvious sexual reference, which men seem to like (the reference ) but having to do with facing some kind of adversity, situational or put on the individual by authority, such as Bohica, we are being deployed again!

Wow, I had no idea.... and I knew a guy from around here with a black and white cat named Bohica. To me, "Bohica" sounded sort of made up and gave off vibes maybe like "Bojangles" -- after dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson but in the [white audience's] sense of carefree, sunny, shrugging off problems. Seemed right since the cat was pretty laid back, used to snuggle up to the guy's dog in winter and the dog was some humongous shepherd. I never asked the guy anything about his cat's name though. Just as well, I guess!

 

[0388631]

To knock someone up meant something very different when I was a young boy. Didn't know it meant something else in the US long after moving here. Also how I learned the phrase "Chinaman" was supposedly racist. I still don't see how but eh.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

To knock someone up meant something very different when I was a young boy. Didn't know it meant something else in the US long after moving here. Also how I learned the phrase "Chinaman" was supposedly racist. I still don't see how but eh.

Context is everything. Social, political, legal, economic context in the US when considerable numbers of Chinese emigrants entered the country in the 19th century in search of employment. That is "how".

 

[0388631]

Context is everything. Social, political, legal, economic context in the US when considerable numbers of Chinese emigrants entered the country in the 19th century in search of employment. That is "how".

I'm not saying it's okay to use it. Product of its time, I suppose. I eliminated the word from my vocabulary back in the late 80s.

 

[LizKat]

There are lots of idioms related to food or cooking, e.g.

salt of the earth

cool as a cucumber

slow as molasses in January
(well not for you lot from the southern hemisphere)

half-baked

fine kettle of fish

eat crow​

One I’ve never heard outside the southern tier counties of NY (and also a few counties right above that area) is a parental admonition to someone who eats from his dinner plate by methodically consuming all of one item on it, then all of the next and so forth: “Don’t eat like an Indian”.

No clue if that referred to Asian Indians, think not, and so it was likely a reference to some local tribe of Native Americans so would have been Mohawk or Susquehannock, possibly Oneida. Also no clue if any Native Americans historically did eat all of one thing at a time when multiple items were served at once.

The way people eat meals sometimes today there’s just one thing on the plate anyway, i.e. pizza, lo mein, tacos. I laugh at myself now if I’ve cooked a more traditional sort of dinner and find myself eating all the squash first or all the broccoli before forking into the chicken... I can still hear my granddad admonishing us not to eat “like Indians” but I have no idea where he got that from.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

There are lots of idioms related to food or cooking, e.g.

salt of the earth

cool as a cucumber

slow as molasses in January
(well not for you lot from the southern hemisphere)

half-baked

fine kettle of fish

eat crow​

One I’ve never heard outside the southern tier counties of NY (and also a few counties right above that area) is a parental admonition to someone who eats from his dinner plate by methodically consuming all of one item on it, then all of the next and so forth: “Don’t eat like an Indian”.

No clue if that referred to Asian Indians, think not, and so it was likely a reference to some local tribe of Native Americans so would have been Mohawk or Susquehannock, possibly Oneida. Also no clue if any Native Americans historically did eat all of one thing at a time when multiple items were served at once.

The way people eat meals sometimes today there’s just one thing on the plate anyway, i.e. pizza, lo mein, tacos. I laugh at myself now if I’ve cooked a more traditional sort of dinner and find myself eating all the squash first or all the broccoli before forking into the chicken... I can still hear my granddad admonishing us not to eat “like Indians” but I have no idea where he got that from.

"Eat Crow" and "Slow as Molasses in January" strike me as having their origins in the US as I have never come across either of them until I read them here.

The others I do indeed know, and they brought to mind my mother's admonition, when she would observe, tartly, that, "a watched kettle/pot never boils."

 

[LizKat]

"Eat Crow" and "Slow as Molasses in January" strike me as having their origins in the US as I have never come across either of them until I read them here.

The others I do indeed know, and they brought to mind my mother's admonition, when she would observe, tartly, that, "a watched kettle/pot never boils."

The molasses thing can be a bit of a misnomer since as it turns out, molasses in a warmish January may end up running faster than one would prefer. It was well above freezing in January of 1919 in Boston when a huge dockside tank of molasses burst and spilled over two million gallons of the stuff. It formed a wave 8-15 feet high into all the adjoining streets. Part of the steel tank was cast onto elevated train tracks only seconds after a train had gone by. Because of that and due to buildings collapsing, over 150 people were killed by the sticky mess. Scientists later estimated that the wave had traveled at about 35mph. There's an fascinating book about the event - Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 (Stephen Puleo).

Footnote: the molasses was used in bulk to produce a form of alcohol in production of gunpowder at the time of WWI, so its utility was waning after the war ended. The new idea was to profit from the oncoming scourge of Prohibition in the USA and distill it into grain alcohol for human consumption. So the owners of the tank contracted to have the thing topped off to make the most of their perceived opportunity. But, the tank's construction had been hasty and apparently its capacity was overstated. Two days after seaside tankers filled the molasses tank to the brim was when it collapsed, triggering the flood.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The molasses thing can be a bit of a misnomer since as it turns out, molasses in a warmish January may end up running faster than one would prefer. It was well above freezing in January of 1919 in Boston when a huge dockside tank of molasses burst and spilled over two million gallons of the stuff. It formed a wave 8-15 feet high into all the adjoining streets. Part of the steel tank was cast onto elevated train tracks only seconds after a train had gone by. Because of that and due to buildings collapsing, over 150 people were killed by the sticky mess. Scientists later estimated that the wave had traveled at about 35mph. There's an fascinating book about the event - Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 (Stephen Puleo).

Footnote: the molasses was used in bulk to produce a form of alcohol in production of gunpowder at the time of WWI, so its utility was waning after the war ended. The new idea was to profit from the oncoming scourge of Prohibition in the USA and distill it into grain alcohol for human consumption. So the owners of the tank contracted to have the thing topped off to make the most of their perceived opportunity. But, the tank's construction had been hasty and apparently its capacity was overstated. Two days after seaside tankers filled the molasses tank to the brim was when it collapsed, triggering the flood.

Fascinating, as Mr Spock used to say. Genuinely fascinating. I love those gory and weird bits of local history.

 

[Huntn]

The molasses thing can be a bit of a misnomer since as it turns out, molasses in a warmish January may end up running faster than one would prefer. It was well above freezing in January of 1919 in Boston when a huge dockside tank of molasses burst and spilled over two million gallons of the stuff. It formed a wave 8-15 feet high into all the adjoining streets. Part of the steel tank was cast onto elevated train tracks only seconds after a train had gone by. Because of that and due to buildings collapsing, over 150 people were killed by the sticky mess. Scientists later estimated that the wave had traveled at about 35mph. There's an fascinating book about the event - Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 (Stephen Puleo).

Footnote: the molasses was used in bulk to produce a form of alcohol in production of gunpowder at the time of WWI, so its utility was waning after the war ended. The new idea was to profit from the oncoming scourge of Prohibition in the USA and distill it into grain alcohol for human consumption. So the owners of the tank contracted to have the thing topped off to make the most of their perceived opportunity. But, the tank's construction had been hasty and apparently its capacity was overstated. Two days after seaside tankers filled the molasses tank to the brim was when it collapsed, triggering the flood.

Wow, what a story! Was there a chemical reaction with this molasses that caused the eruption, or at least kept it warm, or just a failure of the tank, I wonder? The saying could reference small quantities susceptible to cold temps.

 

[LizKat]

Wow, what a story! Was there a chemical reaction with this molasses that caused the eruption, or at least kept it warm, or just a failure of the tank, I wonder? The saying could reference small quantities susceptible to cold temps.

It was a mechanical failure of some sort due to filling past what actual specs could support-- hasty construction during early WWI and then the ill fated decision to really fill the tank, which prior to that had been partly filled and drawn upon frequently as the stuff was used in manufacturing ammo during the war. Apparently it had never been topped off before and that's when the flaws were revealed. The only good thing about that incident was that a lot of codes for industrial construction and maintenance were drawn up based upon what happened there.

Yah, the old saying I mentioned is about how molasses, like some other liquids (olive oil for instance) does become more viscous at cold temperatures. Olive oil will set right up in the fridge if you've ever stuck leftover oil and vinegar salad dressing in there... However, it happened to be 43º on that fateful January day in 1919 when that tank blew out and molasses apparently gets a move on okay at that temperature.

Anyway when you get two million gallons of anything that's in a state between liquid and solid bursting the seams of a 58-foot tall tank... it's going to be problematic whether it flows slowly or otherwise: it's going to "run downhill" and everything is pretty much downhill from a 58-foot-high tank to street level. Also there was the matter of the collapse being so abrupt that it cast parts of the tank and its supports out into the neighborhood and onto that train track.

 

[RootBeerMan]

What a great thread! Here's one: Losing my religion, is one we use in the Southeastern US. Means to be at the end of one's rope (another English phrase) and about to lose your mind. I loved it when R.E.M. put it in a song and everyone outside the SE US took it literally to mean losing your religion, rather than as a descriptor for your emotional state.

 

[LizKat]

What a great thread! Here's one: Losing my religion, is one we use in the Southeastern US. Means to be at the end of one's rope (another English phrase) and about to lose your mind. I loved it when R.E.M. put it in a song and everyone outside the SE US took it literally to mean losing your religion, rather than as a descriptor for your emotional state.

Love that song -- and the video, which I took as commentary by them about what you just posted.

I've said too much...
I haven't said enough...

[in other words: y'all probably not gonna get this]
​

---

Speaking of ropes: there's an expression called "toe the line" which grammars and dictionaries regard as the correct spelling of the phrase. It means to follow the rules someone else has laid out, and stems from track and field events, for instance, where contestants must place a foot on a mark or line and not cross it before told to go ahead.

There is some confusion or let's say rebellion on this matter, among some who prefer to spell the expression as "tow the line" -- which is meant in a marine sense. For instance, a tugboat which has towing lines attached to it is leading the way. So to be towing a line in that sense is not to obey an order but to give it, to show the way, to lead. I grew up with that understanding of the expression thanks to some boating maniacs in the family. When they said to me "yes young lady I heard you but I'm towing the line here, not you" they didn't mean they were obeying some rule, they meant I had crossed some line they had long since drawn and that I at that moment was in deep, deep water.

Have a confusing day!

 

[chown33]

Anyway when you get two million gallons of anything that's in a state between liquid and solid bursting the seams of a 58-foot tall tank... it's going to be problematic whether it flows slowly or otherwise: it's going to "run downhill" and everything is pretty much downhill from a 58-foot-high tank to street level. Also there was the matter of the collapse being so abrupt that it cast parts of the tank and its supports out into the neighborhood and onto that train track.

Maybe molasses is thixotropic. 58 feet seems like plenty of headroom to get a nice flow started, and after that, the thixies and the tropies would keep it going.