OT: Idioms

[wire chief]

From yesterday: Dennis the Menace to mom, "How do you expect me to watch my language?
It's invisible!"

Another: Keep an eye out for cars.

Got any wording if taken literally would be absurd?

 

[alexrgct]

Can anything but an angry bear give me pause?

If you think I'm jumping to conclusions, are you overestimating my leaping ability?

speaking of jumping to Conclusions, are most idioms credited to the author of The Phantom Tollbooth...or just idiots?

 

[FairView]

My literal, autistic son thinks these are especially funny:
It's raining cats and dogs.
I'm just pulling your leg.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

OK, this is more a PC issue I think than "idiom" but close:

The men's room at the steak restaurant was labeled "men" & "bulls"; the other "women" & "lambs".

Now I realize cows and sows and lots of other possibilities are kind of taboo, but really . . . my wife is a "lamb"? I think not; then again, I'm no bull.

 

[UCONNfan1]

When Pigs Fly (that would be an amusing sight for sure)

Pigging Out (on food I assume)

Have a Cast Iron Stomach (ouch!)

 

[triaddukefan]

I'm so hungry I could eat a horse

 

[rvwsleep]

Not quite idiom's but I always wondered why one drives on the parkway and parks in the driveway ?
Also, why does cargo travel in a boat and a shipment usually by truck ?
But the most mystifying is why there's a "permanent press" setting on an iron !!

 

[reno tony]

Now I realize cows and sows and lots of other possibilities are kind of taboo, but really . . . my wife is a "lamb"? I think not; then again, I'm no bull.

A lamb is a sheep that is less than a year old and of either sex. Ewes are female, rams are male, and wethers are castrated rams.

 

[Zorro]

My literal, autistic son thinks these are especially funny:
It's raining cats and dogs.
I'm just pulling your leg.

Tell the lad to be careful not to step in a poodle. That might crack him up.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

A lamb is a sheep that is less than a year old and of either s e x.

That was sort of the point.

Why they have to label their restrooms oddly at all is another point, FWIW. But I have seen it done without mixing species and using a gender neutral term for women.

 

[Vowelguy]

My college roommate came to the US when he was 7. While he's fluent in English ( you could never tell he wasn't a native speaker), and he's a language guru (speaks 7 or 8 well), he never got the idiom "I've got a bone to pick with you." He'd say "I have to pick your bones." Or some other bad mix of words.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

It was too many years ago to remember exactly, but we had a graduate student from India on our "Spring Break" bus trip to Daytona. Wonderful and nice guy, but, a similar problem to the one vowelguy mentions. Straightforward speech was fine (he did have a bit of accent) but certain phrases he just couldn't handle. One was eggs "sunny side up"; he consistently wanted "sunny egg sides". And there were a couple of others.

 

[UCSunWBBFan]

Last year, when my youngest granddaughter was two and a half, I was helping her with her clothes. She got her shirt stuck in the back of her pants. I said, "Let me give you a hand." She looked at me, showed me her hands, and said "Grammy, I already have two hands."

 

[Kibitzer]

During my 20 years of Army service, I was constantly exposed to some withering idioms and down-home metaphors. Many are unfortunately unprintable. A couple that may elude censorship:

"Slippery as snot on a doorknob."

"Colder than a whore's heart."