Odd sayings we still use that might not make sense...

[M'Sharak]

Less is More. One of the most moronic, idiotic things I've ever heard.

Less is not more, less is less. If less was more it would be called more, but it's not, it's called less and the reason for that is because it's less.

Ah. Deep breath.....

When you divorce an expression from any and all context, it might seem idiotic. But in context -- in art and design, say, or in performing arts, where newer practitioners may tend to over-ornament / over-design / over-perform / over-act a thing, rendering it worse by being thus overdone -- the notion of "less is more" makes perfect sense. A measure of restraint can often lead in the end to a better result.

Deep breath, indeed.

If the record were truly broken, as in shattered, it wouldn’t play at all. A scratched record often resulted in the same thing being repeated endlessly.

I wonder how many of those under thirty actually get that saying

In the days before records were made of vinyl, they were quite fragile. If a record, slightly mishandled, became cracked across the grooved portion (rather than entirely shattered, and thus unplayable) it would quite often repeat the same groove indefinitely, much as a later vinyl record would do if scratched.

That's the "broken record" to which the saying refers.

 

[StarCruiser]

Let's see who figures these out...

"You don't have to tell him his job. He knows the ropes."

"I'm running out of steam."

"I was taken aback."

 

[Maurice]

Meh, language is an ever evolving thing, and the stuff most people balk at as wrong or nonsensical is mostly selective about things that are new and which sound wrong to us. For instance, is chock English full of contronyms/auto-antonyms/Janus words and phrases that most of us never thing twice about. Bolt to secure and bolt to flee, for instance.

And in American English how many people complain that a bill is called a check in a restaurant and you pay bills with checks? People still refer to taping or filming things even though it's all data going onto computer memory. We terrific to mean great when it originally meant terrible.

Did you know that in the jazz age to say, "Be yourself" was to call someone out for putting on airs? Now it's a self-actualization thing.

I highly recommend linguist John McWhorter's podcast Lexicon Valley for anyone interested in the topic of the American English language and its origins, evolution, and peculiarities.

 

[Relayer1]

Football commentators over here started using the word dispossessed to mean tackled.

The normal accepted usage was to have your land taken away, to lose property. To be tackled in sport was hardly that, but if you were running with the ball you were sort of in possession of it, and if you were tackled you had it taken away. The use of the word may not have been correct, but it stuck.

Now it's in common use for being tackled, it actually does mean that, it's accepted. Language is fluid, it changes and grows.

Dispossessed for tackled still annoys me.

 

[cultcross]

The change of word meaning over time can sometimes render idiom and turns of phrase from long ago either nonsensical or change their sense to modern speakers.

My favorite example is the word "prove". Nowadays we take "prove" to mean something like "demonstrate to be true", but it originally meant just to test. So phrases like "proving ground", "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" and "the exception proves the rule" all suddenly make more sense.

The change in meaning in the last example there in particular has changed some people's impression of the phrase to something like "the existence of exceptions means the rule is valid", which makes no sense at all. An exception definitely tests the validity of a rule though.


This isn't the case for phrases like "less is more" though, the contradiction there is a deliberate rhetorical device to make a point.

 

[cultcross]

Dispossessed for tackled still annoys me.

Disinterested for uninterested annoys me.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Rumpole of the Bailey correcting (his son I recall) that tasteless is without flavour, distasteful is unpleasant. That one's always stuck with me. Thanks, Cromwell.

 

[scotpens]

. . . So phrases like "proving ground", "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" and "the exception proves the rule" all suddenly make more sense.

Nowadays the adage "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" is often mangled to "the proof is in the pudding," which is completely nonsensical.

 

[Silvercrest]

... drives me up the wall (now that is an old saying that's been around longer than I have, and I always had a mental image of a car driving up a wall and it never made sense to me).

Well, Spider-Man briefly had a Spider-Mobile in the 1970s (that could drive up walls) and it was incredibly annoying.

Let's see who figures these out...
"You don't have to tell him his job. He knows the ropes."
"I'm running out of steam."
"I was taken aback."

Without looking online, #1 sounds pretty obviously like it's from the Age of Sail. #2 sounds equally obviously like it's from the Industrial Revolution; i.e. steam engines. #3 I have no idea, but I figure it equates to being set back a step.

How did I do?

Nowadays the adage "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" is often mangled to "the proof is in the pudding," which is completely nonsensical.

I only heard the complete phrase for the first time a few years ago. Suddenly it makes a LOT more sense.

Maybe not try and be so literal.

I can't help it. Less is less. There's no other way to be in this case.

Only if you're Drax. Otherwise it might help to acknowledge that a valid context does exist for that figure of speech. Now, if you personally don't care for it (which is true for me in a lot of cases), that's fine. Perhaps it drives you up the wall! But it's still not the same thing.

 

[M'Sharak]

Let's see who figures these out...

"You don't have to tell him his job. He knows the ropes."

"I'm running out of steam."

"I was taken aback."

Without looking online, #1 sounds pretty obviously like it's from the Age of Sail. #2 sounds equally obviously like it's from the Industrial Revolution; i.e. steam engines. #3 I have no idea, but I figure it equates to being set back a step.

How did I do?

In fact, all three could apply to maritime / Age of Sail.

#1 refers to a seaman / deckhand understanding how to work the various aspects of a ship's rigging: raise, lower or set sails, set or cast off mooring lines, etc.

For #2, to run out of steam effectively meant to run out of the fuel (often coal) needed to keep the boiler heated (and thus pressurized.) Applies equally to any vehicle or process driven by steam engine.

For #3, "aback" means toward the rear or stern of the ship, and in particular refers to wind direction. To be taken aback meant to have the ship positioned so that the wind was blowing onto the front of the sails, rather than from behind, and thus slowing or stopping the ship's forward progress.

 

[Kor]

If the record were truly broken, as in shattered, it wouldn’t play at all. A scratched record often resulted in the same thing being repeated endlessly.

I wonder how many of those under thirty actually get that saying

Probably a lot, considering the hipster love of vinyl records.

And I always thought the expression was supposed to be "broken record player" and not just "broken record."

Kor

 

[StarCruiser]

Well, Spider-Man briefly had a Spider-Mobile in the 1970s (that could drive up walls) and it was incredibly annoying.


Without looking online, #1 sounds pretty obviously like it's from the Age of Sail. #2 sounds equally obviously like it's from the Industrial Revolution; i.e. steam engines. #3 I have no idea, but I figure it equates to being set back a step.

How did I do?


I only heard the complete phrase for the first time a few years ago. Suddenly it makes a LOT more sense.



Only if you're Drax. Otherwise it might help to acknowledge that a valid context does exist for that figure of speech. Now, if you personally don't care for it (which is true for me in a lot of cases), that's fine. Perhaps it drives you up the wall! But it's still not the same thing.

In fact, all three could apply to maritime / Age of Sail.

#1 refers to a seaman / deckhand understanding how to work the various aspects of a ship's rigging: raise, lower or set sails, set or cast off mooring lines, etc.

For #2, to run out of steam effectively meant to run out of the fuel (often coal) needed to keep the boiler heated (and thus pressurized.) Applies equally to any vehicle or process driven by steam engine.

For #3, "aback" means toward the rear or stern of the ship, and in particular refers to wind direction. To be taken aback meant to have the ship positioned so that the wind was blowing onto the front of the sails, rather than from behind, and thus slowing or stopping the ship's forward progress.

The first and third definitely Age of Sail:

Knows the ropes is just as M'Sharak stated - a sailor who know what all of the lines on a ship are for. "Able Seaman" in the Royal Navy.

Taken aback does indeed mean a ship stopped by running into the wind and having her sails pushed against the masts. Can be done on purpose to bleed speed or by sloppy handling.

As to "Running out of steam" - that's actually more related to the old steam locomotives of the 19th century running out of pressure when either running to hard and/or with too much load. The old fireboxes were usually very narrow and sat between the drivers - and simply couldn't produce enough heat to keep up the pressure.

Still - two people caught on quick!

 

[Gov Kodos]

The first and third definitely Age of Sail:

Knows the ropes is just as M'Sharak stated - a sailor who know what all of the lines on a ship are for. "Able Seaman" in the Royal Navy.

Taken aback does indeed mean a ship stopped by running into the wind and having her sails pushed against the masts. Can be done on purpose to bleed speed or by sloppy handling.

As to "Running out of steam" - that's actually more related to the old steam locomotives of the 19th century running out of pressure when either running to hard and/or with too much load. The old fireboxes were usually very narrow and sat between the drivers - and simply couldn't produce enough heat to keep up the pressure.

Still - two people caught on quick!

Terms from the age of sail abound in English. That's what has always made warp speed sound hilarious to me. Hauling on an anchor cable in a dead calm or against the wind is hardly fast. On the other hand, some means to overcome the dead calm imposed by the limits of light speed makes it a a good term, ironically fast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warping_(sailing)

 

[Velocity]

To indicate disgust with someone, my dad would call them a pantywaist. He really had little patience with a pantywaist. A pantywaist was an actual garment that little boys wore. It buttoned the shirt to the pants at the waist. So, this was a very old fashioned way to say someone (usually a male someone) was behaving in a childish way.

 

[cultcross]

Related to this topic, I like it when expressions preserve 'fossil words' - words that have fallen out of use almost everywhere except that expression. "At their beck and call", "with bated breath", "much ado about nothing". When I did English classes you would occasionally come across one of these words in a different context on an old text and it would make you stumble even though you'd said the word yourself - you'd realise half the time you couldn't even define it outside the phrase you were familiar with.

 

[Silvercrest]

I cringe every time I see someone render it as "with baited breath". Seriously???
DItto with writing "unfazed" as "unphased". People seem to have no idea what they're saying anymore.

 

[M'Sharak]

Related to this topic, I like it when expressions preserve 'fossil words' - words that have fallen out of use almost everywhere except that expression. "At their beck and call", "with bated breath", ...

To "raise the hue and cry" could be another, or "Lo and behold".

"much ado about nothing".

See also: "And so, without further ado... "

When I did English classes you would occasionally come across one of these words in a different context on an old text and it would make you stumble even though you'd said the word yourself - you'd realise half the time you couldn't even define it outside the phrase you were familiar with.

It was at about this point that I began to discover etymology and word / phrase histories as entertaining time-sinks. (Thank you, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 9th Edition!)

I cringe every time I see someone render it as "with baited breath". Seriously???
DItto with writing "unfazed" as "unphased". People seem to have no idea what they're saying anymore.

Partly a product of people growing up with television, I suspect. Where language used to be taught primarily by way of reading and writing, many now learn their primary language (as well as most secondary languages) by hearing them spoken on television or on playback of recorded A/V media as much or more than they do by reading and writing them.

 

[cultcross]

"Lo and behold".

Nowadays I guess it is Lol and behold, which is a much better phrase, in my eye.

 

[M'Sharak]

It just occurred to me that this thread might be a good place to drop in a link to a site made by a longtime collector and explainer of English-language words and phrases, not a few of them old and/or of obscure origin. It looks like he's retired from adding to it further, but there's quite a bit there, accumulated over the span of 20 years or so.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/genindex.htm

 

[Kor]

...
Partly a product of people growing up with television, I suspect. Where language used to be taught primarily by way of reading and writing, many now learn their primary language (as well as most secondary languages) by hearing them spoken on television or on playback of recorded A/V media as much or more than they do by reading and writing them.

On the other hand, if we go back a few centuries, spelling wasn't so standardized and prescriptive like it is now, and you would see the same words spelled different ways in different books, or even in the same book when multiple compositors were involved, such as in Shakespeare's first folio. One drama director/coach claims that variant spellings within the same scene such as "he/hee" and "faile/fayle" were actually signals to the actors to pronounce or accentuate the words differently (Source 1 and 2), but I'm not sure how accepted that notion is. It's also interesting that Shakespeare's surviving handwritten signatures show that he(e) spelled his own last name a few different ways.

Kor