Sayings that you never understood or misinterpreted growing

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NeueZiel
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08 Jun 2012, 8:41 am

I guess this is common place for a lot of people here since a classic aspie trait is being very literal, though it wasn't as much of a problem for me growing up. I still had issues with a few phrases though, most notably this one:

"spare the rod and spoil the child""

I always thought it meant that it was better to spoil the child than to inflict pain upon them and thought it was an early saying protesting child abuse. How wrong I was. I just found out about this one a couple of years ago.


Anyone else confuse or misinterpret old sayings?



Last edited by NeueZiel on 08 Jun 2012, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

happymusic
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08 Jun 2012, 9:32 am

That's what I thought it meant....?

Raining cats and dogs makes a literal image in my mind. I always thought it must be like those stories people tell of frogs and fish falling from the sky. Silly, I know, but still.



Irulan
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08 Jun 2012, 9:36 am

In Polish we say about a plump person that they are "near the bone", which I always interpreted as this person being very thin - because the layer of flesh is very close to the bone then, it's near the bone.



NeueZiel
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08 Jun 2012, 9:58 am

happymusic wrote:
That's what I thought it meant....?

Raining cats and dogs makes a literal image in my mind. I always thought it must be like those stories people tell of frogs and fish falling from the sky. Silly, I know, but still.


Nope! Apparently not!

wiki wrote:
Etymology
Probably from:
1611, King James Version of the Bible, Book of Proverbs, 13:24
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.


Irulan wrote:
In Polish we say about a plump person that they are "near the bone", which I always interpreted as this person being very thin - because the layer of flesh is very close to the bone then, it's near the bone.


That would confuse me too.



happymusic
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08 Jun 2012, 10:07 am

So what does the spare the rod one mean?



Irulan
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08 Jun 2012, 10:19 am

It means you should beat your kid if they only deserve, because otherwise you will raise a spoiled child not being afraid of punishment.

In Polish we say also about a fat person that he or she is "fluffy", weird. It's persian cats that are fluffy and not obese folks.



happymusic
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08 Jun 2012, 10:35 am

oh. I never realized. geh.



Mindsigh
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08 Jun 2012, 12:28 pm

"A stitch in time saves nine." Nine what???

In a side note, when I heard of the band The Ben Folds Five, I didn't realize that the guy's name was Ben Folds, so I always wondered what he was folding. :?



DJFester
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09 Jun 2012, 1:43 am

A stitch in time saves nine... that means if a stitch is taken as soon as a tear / hole in something is noticed, it will save you from having to take 9 more stitches to fix a bigger hole / tear.


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ghoti
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09 Jun 2012, 11:20 am

Clean as a whistle. What if you have a dirty whistle?



Joker
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09 Jun 2012, 11:27 am

Your sparing the rod and just using your hands to beat the child that is what it means.



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09 Jun 2012, 12:21 pm

I didn't understand what squeaky clean meant, as a child.


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09 Jun 2012, 12:30 pm

I actually thought a piggy bank was well...a piggy bank. I was an adult when I learned what it actually is.


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09 Jun 2012, 12:33 pm

I never understood what people mean by I'll fix your wagon.



TallyMan
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09 Jun 2012, 1:06 pm

You can't have your cake and eat it. :?


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naturalplastic
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09 Jun 2012, 6:34 pm

"Handsome is as handsome does."

Wtf does THAT mean?
I heard one of my eighth grade teachers say that, and I still cant decifer it.

She was a lady responding to girls in the class. So the male equivalent would be "beauty is as beauty does" I suppose. But it still doesnt make any sense.