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Irulan
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10 Jul 2010, 4:31 am

Because if you don't darn a small hole with this one stitch, the hole will get bigger and you will have to make nine stitches to close it up.



Valoyossa
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10 Jul 2010, 4:34 am

Next Polish sayings:
As stupid as a shoe - anybody has seen smart shoe?
As stupid as sack of flour
As boring as guts with oil - as dry as dust, very boring

Irulan, you really don't know brzydki jak noc listopadowa or piękny jak za pięć dwunasta?

People in songs often sing I'm falling down (spadam w dół) - anybody can fall UP?


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b9
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10 Jul 2010, 9:46 am

Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
sober as a judge


Sarcasm. Judges being characterised as drunken fools.


so if someone is as "sober as a judge" it means they are drunk?
where i have heard it used, it seemed that it was used to actually mean the person was sober.
i have never seen a drunken judge, but i have not seen many judges.

Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
straight as the crow flies.


Birds usually fly in a straight line over any obstacles. A crow travels the shortest distance between two points. Unless you get really picky about Great Circles. :lol:


the crows i have seen are usually at the tip (rubbish dump), and they fly 'round and 'round and waft over the rotting debris looking for morsels which they then swoop on. i think canada geese fly in a very straight line, so they should have used that bird for their saying. "as straight as the canada goose flies"

Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
as bright as a button


Buttons are polished so that they shine. This is connected with the metaphorical use of "bright" to mean intelligent, illuminated, or fresh.

ok. i do not think if someone polishes their head they will look smarter to me.
i do know what these sayings mean mind you. i have learned what they mean, but i still see no real logic in their formulation.


Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
as slow as a wet week


Never heard it, probably meaning a working week when it's raining outside and time is subjectively slow due to boredom.


when i have to work, it does not matter whether it is sunny or raining. work is work and whatever the weather, it is just as time consuming.

Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
as high as a kite (kites are not always in the air, and when they are they are not that high)


Indeed not, but the typical state of a kite is high in the air. I don't know whether the phrase refers to kites-the-object or kites-the-bird.


but the saying is referring to someone who is on drugs. do people on drugs seem like they are flying?
i have seen many people on drugs and they seem to slump heavily in their chairs. i just can not see how the founder of that expression came up with it. i know what it means but it seems stupid to me.

Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
a mind like a steel trap. i never read anything of interest written by a steel trap.


Of course not. The comparison is not to the mind of a steel trap, which is nonsensical, but of a mind to a steel trap's main attribute - dangerous speed.


ok. that makes some sense. but if the speed is dangerous, then how can the implication of the saying be used as a compliment ?.
the way i understand that saying is that someone is smart.
if they think dangerously fast, then where is the danger? is the danger that they will go nuts? does it mean that someone is manic?

again i point out that i know it is used as a compliment to someone's intelligence, but really.....steel traps?
surely there are other devices that can be better to use as an analogy.

Ambivalence wrote:
Quote:
a rapier wit.


The designed function of a rapier is to stab people. Rapier wit delivers the mental equivalent of a stab.
ok thanks for that explanation. i never thought of it that way. although i know it means someone is very witty, i imagined that the saying was derived from the idea that rapiers are used to harvest wheat and other grains, so they must be "smart" (?!?!?).
now i know that it means that rapiers are "sharp", and that word can also be applied to a persons mind.

but how can a persons mind be sharp or dull? there is no physical shape of a persons mind. maybe it means that sharp people can cut their way through their thoughts, and dull people must barge their way through their thoughts.

but either way, if they get to the same place in the end it is all equal. one person uses a scythe and another uses a club. maybe the one who uses the club is more exhausted when they get to their destination...oh it is all a twisted tangle. i like metaphors that come from my own mind. external metaphors confuse me because i did not think of them.



anyway i have a few more sayings that i understand the meaning of, but can not see why the author of them used the words they did.


---------------
example: "more or less"

me: is this the right amount?
person: more or less.

so therefore it is not the right amount. either i have to use more or i have to use less. insane.
i know more or less means "yes" but how it means that from the word structure i can not grasp
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example : "six of one and half a dozen of the other".
that means "it is not important".

but what if i have half a dozen of one, six of the other? actually i just realized it is not important because they are the same. ok i understand that one now. i never analyzed it before.
_________
example: "at the end of the day".

"at the end of the day, it does not solve anything."

so it does not solve anything only at the end of the day? so at all other times it does solve something?
when is the end of the day? at the picosecond before midnight?

i would consider whatever is the case only at the "end" of the day to be infinitesimally unimportant.

yes i have a crude idea that it means "in the long run" or whatever it was that i was told.
--------------

example "here and there"
if someone is asked what they feel about something and they say "i'm here and there about it", then it supposedly means they do not care.
but they do not define where "there" is, so "there" could be anywhere, and "anywhere" is "everywhere".
so "here and there" means everywhere, and that adds up to they care very much because their care is everywhere. the logical deconstruction of the saying is absurd in my mind.
______________
.

example: "make hay while the sun shines"
making hay involves harvesting the lucerne or whatever crop, and letting it dry.
but it does not happen in one day. the sun does not shine at night.
it takes weeks for the lucerne to dry out, and i never heard that hay is destroyed if it rains one day or if the sun goes down at night.

it means do what you can while the opportunity is there. but i can not wed the saying to the sentiment.

and the saying means similar to "strike while the iron is hot".
i do understand that saying. my understanding of "strike while the iron is hot" is incorrect, but i like my idea of it better than the descriptions i have been told.

to me, "strike while the iron is hot" means that if you have a branding iron, and you have heated it in a fire so it is red hot, then you should not hesitate to punch the brand into the rump of a cow. if you strike while the iron is hot, you only need to keep the brand on the cow for one second, but if you hesitate, then the iron cools, and you make a mess of it and have to do it again which injures the cow moreso.
(to people who think branding is cruel: if you do not brand your cows, they are likely to be stolen and sold to a market which then passes them to an abattoir very quickly)

--------------
example: "you sow what you reap".

i hope to eat what i reap and not have to sow it back into the ground.

if i reap crops that have gone to seed, then i would have to sow them again to salvage some value from them.

i do not understand that saying yet and i can not be bothered to google it because i am not interested enough to.
------------

the "stitch in time saves nine" one has already been mentioned, but when i was a child i always thought it meant that "a lucky break can save a few people from disaster"

to me, a "stitch in time" meant something like a time warp, and the nine people were in a spaceship heading for a disastrous collision with something like a black hole, and in a lucky break, they were saved by a flaw in the fabric of time.

------------
many hands make light work, but too many cooks spoil the broth.
what is it to be then? one or the other! which one do i believe?

i just like to play my computer games and not think about the words of the world because they are just white noise when all heard together, and in the end, they will all be silent anyway.



sylvr
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11 Jul 2010, 8:04 am

MONIQUEIJ wrote:
smart as a wimp

I think it's "smart as a whip", which is still a bit confusing, unless smart is in the sense of stinging. "ow, that smarts!"

b9 wrote:
example: "you sow what you reap".

I've heard it as "you reap what you sow" which makes a lot more sense.


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sylvr
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11 Jul 2010, 8:06 am

Oh yeah and "I could care less". Shouldn't it mean that they care a whole bunch now?


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b9
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11 Jul 2010, 11:14 am

sylvr wrote:
b9 wrote:
example: "you sow what you reap".

I've heard it as "you reap what you sow" which makes a lot more sense.

yes that does not sound illogical. but still, i do not see the intelligence in it because it is obvious that you reap what you sow (if it grows and you still own it when it is mature).

i used to like making up my own sayings to see whether people would squish their eyebrows together when i said them.

like "as slippery as the back door of an abandoned van"
"as believable as a bottle of curdled milk"
"as angry as a deck of cards with the jokers missing"
"as bored as a nail gun in a concrete factory"
"as lucky as a paper clip in a widows bottom drawer"
"as dressy as a bounced check in summer".
"as pretty as a blown valve in the tire of a sidecar"
"as hopeless as a boot in a doll shop"

any saying can be argued to make sense if it is already adopted into parlance.
i try to make up totally nonsensical ones, but when i say them, a lot of people accept them and even adopt them. they do not know i made them up, they think i heard it somewhere else, and they attribute credibility to their appropriateness. it is quite hilarious in a way.

people are such fun to play with sometimes.



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13 Jul 2010, 10:05 am

"Sure as hell" - we aren't sure if hell exists.



Irulan
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13 Jul 2010, 11:08 am

Valoyossa wrote:
Next Polish sayings:
As stupid as a shoe - anybody has seen smart shoe?
As stupid as sack of flour
As boring as guts with oil - as dry as dust, very boring

Irulan, you really don't know brzydki jak noc listopadowa or piękny jak za pięć dwunasta?

People in songs often sing I'm falling down (spadam w dół) - anybody can fall UP?


I encountered the one about the November night only in novels; it's a rare saying. I know it but I don't stumble upon it often. The latter one was unknown to me - I just asked mom if she ever heard it; she never did either.

The one about guts - when you mean the dish, you use the term "tripes' not "guts". though in Polish the name of this dish is literally "guts". I thought as a child it is indeed made of intestines due to it.



CockneyRebel
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13 Jul 2010, 10:43 pm

It's raining cats and dogs.


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Blasty
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14 Jul 2010, 12:19 am

"I could care less about ________"

It implies that I still care to some extent. I prefer to say "I couldn't care less" when I honestly don't give a rat's ass. And before you jump on me for using another weird saying, a rat's ass is an indispensable commodity used in witch's brews, cheap hot dogs, etc. It's not to simply be given away.



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14 Jul 2010, 12:47 am

Blasty wrote:
"I could care less about ________"

It implies that I still care to some extent. I prefer to say "I couldn't care less" when I honestly don't give a rat's ass. And before you jump on me for using another weird saying, a rat's ass is an indispensable commodity used in witch's brews, cheap hot dogs, etc. It's not to simply be given away.


Actually, it really is supposed to be "I couldn't care less". People just say it wrong all the time.



Asp-Z
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14 Jul 2010, 5:10 am

MechAnime wrote:
Blasty wrote:
"I could care less about ________"

It implies that I still care to some extent. I prefer to say "I couldn't care less" when I honestly don't give a rat's ass. And before you jump on me for using another weird saying, a rat's ass is an indispensable commodity used in witch's brews, cheap hot dogs, etc. It's not to simply be given away.


Actually, it really is supposed to be "I couldn't care less". People just say it wrong all the time.


Yup.

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