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Post a idiom/expression you imagined literally

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auntblabby
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15 Jul 2018, 4:49 pm

Oakling wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
From the 16th century "to eat one's own heart" (to suffer in silence from anguish or grief), possibly from the Bible "to eat one's own flesh" (to be lazy) The phrase "to eat one's heart out" appears as a formulaic phrase in the Iliad, meaning to experience extreme grief. So in the modern era, to tell somebody that means a declaration, often exaggerated, joking and boastful, of being better than another person, the aforementioned often being a celebrity or historical figure, one is telling another or referring to another who is deemed inferior, to suffer, or in a more modern way, to "watch my smoke."


Thanks, I think I understand it now!! Though I can’t imagine wanting to eat my heart if I was deeply grieving, how would I reach it anyway?

if one is in extreme grief/angst one can feel a coarse burning in one's heart, this is a physical thing as well as an emotional thing.



Campin_Cat
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15 Jul 2018, 6:37 pm

The ones that I remember, as a kid, totally confusing me, were:

"Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!" - that one just absolutely WRECKED me!! LOL

And, "A bird in the hand, is worth two in the bush" - no matter what anyone said, I thought I should put that bird, down, and get the two in the bush!! LOL My thinking was, if I caught the one, why couldn't I have caught the TWO?!?!





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lostonearth35
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01 Aug 2018, 11:23 am

Whenever I hear someone say "crunch those numbers" I think of something similar to eating a bowl Alpha-Bits, which I believe now has numbers as well as letters in it.



naturalplastic
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01 Aug 2018, 5:48 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
Whenever I hear someone say "crunch those numbers" I think of something similar to eating a bowl Alpha-Bits, which I believe now has numbers as well as letters in it.


Mom volunteered that she "hated" the expression because in her minds eye it was "like crunching on bones". But in my minds eye its much like your image. I think of sugary breakfast cereal baked into little gaming dice. Pour some milk on it and crunch away! Sounds like fun!



IstominFan
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02 Aug 2018, 9:14 am

I saw a book yesterday called "Raining Cats and Dogs" about idioms and their meanings. It was really interesting. They had picture representations of the literal meaning and described the real meaning in words.



naturalplastic
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02 Aug 2018, 9:38 am

There was a children's book some years ago called "the King Who Reigned" (the picture on the cover was a solemn looking king suspended in midair face down while water drops fell from his face and body onto to the ground)devoted to depictions of expressions that we all remember trying to figure out as children, like trying to grasp how a king could "rain". Laugh out loud funny for grown ups and kids alike.