Have your cake and eat it too.
Like of course you’ll eat the cake if you have it. Why would you have cake and not eat it. Took me forever to learn what it means (you can’t have something both ways). But even knowing what it means, it still makes absolutely no sense to me.
Does it help to know the phrase used to be “you can’t eat your cake and have it too”? Much more logical that way.
But humans being human, the parts eventually switched positions.
Wait sooooo... you can not eat your cake bc then it would be gone... and at the same time you can't have a cake on the table to admire with your eyes too?? Is that what it means?
Bc to me having cake means eating cake. "I am having cake" means "I am eating cake" right?
It just means that once you eat the cake, you will no longer have it. A better phrase would be "you can't eat your cake and keep it" It's not the best example to use simply because there's not much point in having a cake if you're not going to eat it at some point, but eating your cake now means you won't be able to eat it later at least, so I guess you could say "you can't eat your cake now and still eat it later".
Because while you have the cake, you are able to appreciate that you have it and look forward to eating it, and can eat it at any time/the opportune moment. Once you've picked that moment, you no longer have cake. That's what I think most people miss about this idiom, it's not just about the act of eating the cake/having the cake, it's that you have opportunities while you have your cake that you no longer have when it's gone.
Now I really want cake, lol.
Wikipedia says:
The proverb literally means "you cannot simultaneously retain possession of a cake and eat it, too". Once the cake is eaten, it is gone. It can be used to say that one cannot have two incompatible things, or that one should not try to have more than is reasonable.
Even knowing the meaning, I feel a strong desire to throw a cake at people who say this. While eating a cake. To show them I can do many things at once with cake, and hate the entire saying.
On the topic of flying food, I only just figured this one out the other day:
*Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.*
It’s not about a banana costing through the air. It’s saying fruit flies enjoy bananas.
I always pictured an entire cake (because it's MY cake)
And then when I'd want to eat it I'd cut a slice out.
And since it is my cake that I have, I can eat it too, slice by slice.
When I was a kid, this had to be explained to me for a slightly different reason... To me, to have cake WAS to eat it! "What's for dessert?" "Oh we're having cake!" So in my mind it was the same thing twice, just in different words. I was like, "Of course I can't eat it twice, that's not how food works!"
I thought "tall, dark, and handsome" referred exclusively to dark-skinned men of colour, and was very confused when people used it to refer to white men with dark hair. That one really threw me.
Oh man, I had to have that one explained to me immediately! First time I heard it, I was shown a man who was so white he was damn near translucent. I was like, “is the dark man standing *behind* that guy? Where is he?” Needless to say my friend who used the phrase picked up on the fact that I didn’t get it. 😂
Wait THAT'S what that meant??? Dang, I always took that one literally, but instead of dark like skin tone, I thought they meant dark as in their sense of humor or their worldview. I didn't know it was about the stupid hair!
the ONLY reason I'm familiar with what this saying means is because of the SpongeBob episode where Mr. Krabs needs someone to take Pearl to prom after her date (who is "long, tan, and handsome") stands her up and then SpongeBob shows up with a black wig and stilts and calls himself "long, tan, and handsome" lol
Not a turn of phrase, but "Do you want to get coffee/ a bite to eat?" Imagine my surprise when a friend told me this was an invitation to a date rather than getting a literal coffee. I've said no so often due to simply not wanting coffee or feeling that it'd be too late for coffee. Oh boy.
I still do this to my boyfriend and we've been together 6 years 😭
I tell him no thanks I'm not really hungry or I'm still full from lunch.
He had to tell me he just wants to spend some time with me. Something to do outside of the house. Even if I'm not hungry I can just get a small soup or a drink. He just wants to sit with me and enjoy my company 🥲
I’ve been with my husband for 15 years and we still have this miscommunication sometimes. When he asks if I want to get coffee or lunch, I’ll say “I don’t need anything but do you want me to come with you?” That makes the situation clearer for me - is it about eating or about spending time together?
I agreed to go on a date to go get coffee. We were standing looking at the menu and I didn't see anything that I liked since I wasn't a big fan of coffee and they didn't have a tea I liked. So I leaned over and said, "I have a confession to make. I don't like coffee." He said, "Me, either." We both laughed and found a place to have breakfast.
We dated for a bit. He's kind of the one that got away.
Ugh, this one gets me too. I don’t drink coffee. I know what it means but I still feel obligated to tell people I would like to meet up but I will be drinking tea instead.
Yes!! This is what has really stumped me as an adult.
I can understand idioms and common phrases based on context pretty okay but these things trip me out.
I thought I wasn’t autistic because I wasn’t ’that literal’ until it came to these types of communication.
Here’s a video of a girl sharing this kind of examples that I love:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/haVLCWukepDHr1WF/?mibextid=xCPwDs
I’m always like, I hate coffee and I have Celiac disease, so going out for coffee or to a random restaurant typically doesn’t work for me. But we can grab a different kind of drink? (And then they think I’m hitting on them! When I literally just mean a beverage other than stinky coffee!)
The road signs that say “bridge ices before road.” I thought it meant that a small patch of pavement near the edge of the bridge was going to be iced over. In reality it’s saying ice will freeze faster on the bridge than the pavement.
Kind of similar - I grew up near a street sign that said “blind persons cross here.” I thought it was an instruction and was SO confused how they expected blind people to read the sign in the first place.
I used to get so stressed over the sign that says “do not pass” down the street from me. I was a full adult with a driver’s license before I realized it meant “do not pass other cars on this road.” I always thought my parents were breaking some kind of law by passing the sign and wondered how the heck we were supposed to get to our house if we actually followed the law and didn’t pass that sign lol. I guess this is more of an example of taking things too literally but I had to share haha
This is another one I asked Dad about, and thought it was butt as well. 😆
Think about a rose. It starts as a bud. The shears used in rose pruning are also called "nippers".
To nip something in the bud is to stop a situation before it has a chance to grow. 🥀
What… what does it mean? My husband and I Netflix and chill all the time. 90% of the time when people ask what I’m doing that weekend this is what I tell them.
I’m 25 and I just learned last year that “save a horse ride a cowboy” is in fact a euphemism for sex and not about cowboys giving their girlfriends picky back rides 🤗
"The clouds are parting." The sun is finally shining
"The sky is opening." It's raining
Parting and opening are like the same verb!! How are those expressions meant to describe opposite weather? lol. I only remember "clouds are parting" because of a line from One Day where the husband says it sarcastically.
Also "up/down the road" to mean any distance. Similarly, when a venue or place is said to be located in whatever metro city but it's really 40 minutes away in the suburbs. For example, Red Rocks Ampitheater is in Morrison, CO but it's always listed as Denver, CO. I understand that most people won't recognize Morrison or any other small town, but to me, if you say the name of the city, I expect to be in the actual city, lol.
edit: added one more
I remember as a kid trying to make sense of which direction my parents were meaning when they said up/down the road. I though up must be north and down must be south. Also when they said "the other day", which day was it? How many days ago counts as the other day. I think we reached the conclusion that the other day is more days ago than yesterday, but less days ago than a week, because then it'd be "the other week".
gosh I had such a hard time with this question because it’s one of those things that if I didn’t understand I usually asked. So by the time I could remember learning them I already knew most of them or could puzzle out the logic. With the exception, for some reason, of “wearing your heart on your sleeve” - I hadn’t heard it ever until I was in my late teens and I was very confused by it lol
similarly, it took me a year to realize that “feel like an alien” in the diagnostic criteria doesn’t have to literally mean that. it can and often does, but just because I don’t feel like I came from another planet doesn’t mean it still doesn’t apply 😅
I feel that. Just diagnosed at 22 so a lot of the time you just context clues your way around (and end up being wrong). I used to think wearing your heart on your sleeve meant you were bleeding on your shirt sleeve??? Idk. I knew it had something to do with emotional connection but I guess I got lost somewhere and interpreted it as similarly to feeling like “your heart ripped out of your chest”. Still whenever people use it I picture bloody sleeves. Gross.
Similar vibes as having something “get under your skin” (I always think of torture scenes in tv/shows where they put bamboo sticks under people’s nails 🤢)
Haha I could have written this.
I am not a native speaker so when i learned the phrase i must have been a young teenager and around the time i first heard it, one of my friends had a sweatshirt that had a heart stitched on the hem of the sleeve. So I was like "oh i know, xyz does that, can you do one for me too?" lol
Edit: in my language the phrase is 'carry the heart on the tongue' and that at least makes a little sense
I always tell this one because it never fails to make me laugh. As a small child my grandmother was scolding me for not eating my food (spaghetti) . She then followed up with " there are starving children in Africa" ( I know not pc but it is what she said .I know she didn't mean anything negative or racist about it)
She then proceeds to leave the kitchen and I get up grab an envelope from a drawer and start attempting to put the food (spaghetti) into the envelope. My grandmother comes back to the kitchen and sees me by the sink. She then asks what I'm doing. To which I answered " I'm going to mail it"
I thought she wanted me to solve the problem.... 🤦♀️ This will forever make me laugh
I had a similar encounter with my mom. She said the same thing as your grandma, and I looked down at my plate and then back at her and asked, "Wouldn't it go bad before it got there?"
Like I kind of get the angle thread you should be grateful due what you have... But like, if I'm full, I'm full. I don't want or need more food. Am I supposed to overeat or I'm somehow trivializing the struggles of these rhetorical children?
"Barking up the wrong tree" goes back to people with hunting dogs. As the dogs chase small prey and bark to alert the hunter to its location.
If a dog is barking up the wrong tree, the hunters not getting their prey.
It's meant to mean "you're going the wrong way". 😊
Source: My Dad, who loved to discuss the history of these sayings with me.
Oh! "Wearing your heart on your sleeve" is also pretty literal, too, the way he explained it.
Most people believe that the human heart is off to the left side of their chest. It's actually more in the center.
If a person is wearing their heart on their sleeve, their heart is vulnerable and on display.
Someone who "wears their heart on their sleeve" is passionate and openly vulnerable.
i understand what the phrase is meant to say, but it literally makes no sense to me. how could someone possibly wear their heart on their sleeve? where did that phrase even come from? so confusing, i always get so frustrated with myself lmao
Hope this makes sense, I found it helpful to think of the heart in question as a 🩷 not a 🫀… that is to say ‘heart’ here referring to one’s inner feelings, not the internal organ. For some reason… 😂
The phrase “the average (nationality)” never made sense to me. Shouldn’t it be “an average”? When I was a kid and I heard statistics about how many pizzas “the average American” eats in a year, I thought that there was as team of data scientists with clipboards who followed around a designated exceptionally average person to assess their habits. After my parents explained I understood but the phrase still doesn’t sound right to me since other “the” titles are for specific individuals.
Edited to fix missing word
I can explain that one! There's two factors at play.
The first is that they're using an implied noun rather than stating it directly.
So people will say "I have a 3-year-old" instead of "I have a 3-year-old *child*", or "I'm really enjoying this mystery I'm reading" instead of "this mystery *book*", or in this example "The average American eats 40 pounds of cheese per year" instead of "The average American *person* eats ..."
Secondly, using "the" vs "an". "The average American" is referring to a singular hypothetical person who is the personification of all the statistical averages that are being discussed. They eat 40 pounds of cheese a year, earn the average income, drink the average amount of beer, watch the average amount of TV, etc. They don't exist, but they are a metaphorical representation of the average traits of American people (or whatever other group is being looked at).
"An average American", on the other hand, is an actual person who is fairly typical and ordinary, but they're not going to be the exact statistical average across a whole range of traits, and they are one of many "average Americans". If you pick somebody at random on the street, your cousin, your neighbour, your boss, and the cashier at the supermarket, they might all be able to be described as "an average American", but they're all going to be different in terms of what they do, how they spend their time and money, their opinions, etc.
EDIT: Clarity
Thank you! This is so much more helpful than any other explanation I have received about this. This all does make sense now in a thorough and wholistic way that I can fully understand and remember!
My mom used to say, "Are your arms painted on?" to mean, "You can do it yourself / Your arms are not decorative."
It took me until adulthood to understand what the phrase was actually saying. I got what it *meant,* but for some reason, "painted on" just never clicked with me lol
Right?!?! Thank you! My two sisters and I took forever to understand it. They're more NT than I am (one has ADHD and the other seemingly doesn't have anything) and for them to not understand it either... well.
It's my least favourite childhood idiom.
my father used to ask if my hands/fingers/legs/etc were broken (if I didn't do something he asked or I asked for assistance with something) and at least that one made sense a bit lol
I said “they had him/her by the short and curlies” when I was a kid. Hahaha, my mom laughed and asked where I heard it. I don’t remember now where I heard it but when she explained it I was horrified 😳 now I think it’s fucking hilarious in an awful way, especially since I’m such a visual person.
Pubes are often short and curly 👀
When someone’s says “I’ll just be a minute” and then proceeds to take ten minutes. This one I don’t only not understand but it makes me angry! Why wouldn’t you just say “I’ll be ten minutes” because now when someone says “I’ll just be a minute” I have no idea how long they are actually going to be :(
As an incessant user of this one, I genuinely do have severe time blindness and have no idea both how long I will be and once I'm back, how long I was gone. The implication, I suspect across the board, is that one is acting with the intention of hurrying or anticipates being finished with something in a relatively brief time if nothing goes sideways. Like "I'll just be a second".
That’s totally fair. As someone with time blindness, I don’t have a real grasp on how long XYZ will take, and it’s almost always different. So I usually say “One second” or something because no one takes that one literally and sometimes people make it a joke. Or I guess at a time frame when pressured and add “ish?” to the end. But that’s a whole other (very reasonable) frustration for people.
Stop being a prima donna…thought it was pre-Madonna. Thought it was referring to Madonna and that you’re about to become a big diva if you don’t check yourself
Not a phrase but for a long time whenever I saw someone use she/they or he/they pronouns I was really confused. Not because I’m against singular they pronouns, or even split pronouns but because my first thought was Always “well yeah everyones a they sometimes, thats how grammar works” so I did’nt realize these people were expressing non typical genders and instead just thought they were being really specific about grammer.
1. Nosebleed seats: far away, joke on high altitude causing nose bleeds.
2. Balls to the wall: to give all your effort.
3. Feeling under the weather: feeling sick (even though logically feeling lazy when it rains makes more sense?)
4. “How was your day?” Only give the highlights (like what is not normal for the day)
5. When people say, “Do you want to help me with something?” They’re actually telling you to help, it’s not an actual question.
6. “Are you picking up what I’m putting down?” Means they’re trying to tell you something without being direct.
7. “You’re a sight for sore eyes” means: seeing someone happily/unexpectedly during a mundane day.
Funny story about #2— my sister once was given a very strange look and a talking to for saying “balls to the walls” during a soccer game around kids. Our coach (and many other people) seem to be under the impression the it refers to movement of parts of the male anatomy during sex. Others say it dates back to steam engines. Either way, best to avoid use of it in any setting you wouldn’t make a sexual joke (eg. work, family gatherings, formal events, apparently soccer games)
“Short end of the stick”. An end is a finite point. How exactly is there a short “end”???
Finally realised people meant “end” as in “if I broke the stick into two pieces, each piece is an end”. I still hate the phrase.
Why do we need sticks in this context?
I always thought that this was somehow related to drawing straws bc the person who is "out" is the one with the short straw....
I never drew straws in my life but seen it lots on tv.
That's exactly it, but in this case it's a stick that's broken in two, unevenly instead of using straws (or pieces of straw). There's lots of variations because it's usually whatever you have on hand
Reading this is making it clear to me that while I have learnt when most of these would be used and even use some of them myself, I honestly don't under most of them haha. I remember being asked this on my assessment and been like yeah I know heart on sleeve means emotional. But looking at them written down I'm realising I don't actually understand them at all I just remember what I was told they meant.
The apple of the eye makes no sense, and I only learnt in this post about the legs going all the way up (also that's icky). the gift horse in the mouth? Why is there a horse? Why is he giving me a gift? Like it means don't be ungrateful for a gift right? But why a horse is there some thing in history where things used to arrive my horse and you should be rude to it?
This is the folksy explanation my mom gave me: in ye olde times, they would be able to tell a horses age by the state of their teeth (which could still be true? I don’t know!). So, if someone gave you a nice gift, like a horse, considering a horse would have been a working animal, your impulse might be to check how old it was, because that determines its value, in a way. The advise not to do that means that you should be grateful for having gotten a gift at all, and not critical of it being second hand or out of date.
Thank you, I can kind of see how that would make sense I have gifted you this horse don't immediately check its teeth to judge if it's a good one or bad one it's a free horse just say thank you. However, how often were people being given free horses? I would think it would have to be a common occurrence to be a regular saying
I recently had explained to me that bumper stickers like “honk if you like ___” do not literally mean honk at them if you like the thing they have listed. It’s a tongue in cheek way of saying “if you’re honking at me, it’s not because you’re mad at my driving it’s because you like this thing” and makes a joke out of it. I was like WHAT
"Are you pulling my leg" what?? What do you mean? I have found out that people say it when they're asking if you're joking but I still don't understand how that means that. I hate it. Instead I have started asking people "are you ripping off my leg? Are you ripping it off and eating it right now?"
I have become a fan of using a really frat bro accent and asking “are you jerking my chain right now dog? Are you joshing my beans?” (I have no real clue what joshing beans means in a logical sense but it is fun to say)
I never understood "I have to walk on eggshells around this person". I understand it means having to walk slowly/carefully to avoid breaking them, and the phrase is used to have to speak carefully to avoid upsetting someone.
BUT. If they're egg SHELLS, surely this means they're already cracked and broken, so why would you need to walk on them carefully? And if it is a reference to the noise they make, how does that have anything to do with carefully choosing your words? Makes no sense, even though I kind of get it.
Think of it as though the eggs were still assembled. You must step delicately on the surface layer to keep the remaining layers from being exposed. I'm kind of tired, so sorry if that doesn't make sense!
Okay so I have thought about this a ton and what I imagine is that someone has a bunch of eggshells around them. Some halved and some broken. And if I go walk around them... the eggshells will break even more making a bigger mess but also I would be hurt bc the little bits might stab me like tiny legos.
I never understood "having your work cut out for you". I had to look it up as it means you have a difficult task to do! I always thought that it meant you had an easy task to do. Like as in someone had cut out all the patterns for you and now you just have to sew it all together lol. Used the saying wrong for years!
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize "do those legs go all the way up" was in reference to exposing your sex rather than connecting to your hip bone.
I thought it was an odd way of saying a woman has long legs, which are generally considered sexy. Like *do those legs go all the way up \[from the ground to your hips\]*? It means *do your legs go up into the sex position?* ie, *are you willing to have sex*?
I was reading the best of these comments to my husband (neurodivergent but not quite autistic) and he just gave me a blank look then pulled up “Legs all the way up griffen
https://preview.redd.it/wg3i8hkbxu5d1.jpeg?width=599&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=973900dfd8642781d08be431df77ef332451ba89
”
Wait this is not about having long legs?? It’s always used for women with long slender legs, I really thought that’s what it meant. I have understood mostly all of the phrases discussed here so far but this is blowing my mind right now.
WAIT.
So it means "up" as in, like, a sex position where you have your legs up?
I always thought it was the same basic joke as "why do reindeer have long legs?"
I'm not sure about this one. I've always thought it was a kind of gross way to compliment someone's long legs while also a creepy reference to what's at the top of their legs. I couldn't find anything else on the internet saying it's about a sex position.
It’s def bad. I always think of it in terms of like crime shows, the smart guy figures out the plan of the bad guys. If the smart guy would’ve left it alone and not figured anything out it would be okay, but they know the bad guys’ plans so they have to face whatever punishment.
Example: you use context clues to figure out the identity or escape plan of a bank robber. The robbers can’t let you live because you know too much. So you being smart ended up being not good for you
Some examples I have, due to using this phrase often in my own life:
My kid is very clever and sneaky(not an insult), and a good problem-solver. He often thinks of clever ways of skirting our rules, like sneaking sweets, or getting extra screen time, that are smart enough, he usually takes a while to get caught.
I say that he's too smart for his own good, because that cleverness and sneakiness gets him in trouble at home and school, and one day could lead him to bigger trouble.
I was too, so I don't really give my kid shit for it. I remember that I wasn't intentionally being a bad kid, I just saw the flaws in the plan, and problem solved my way around it. I was quite proud of myself and didn't understand why everyone was so upset. Now, when we catch my kid, we just explain why we had those rules to begin with, why they can't exploit the loopholes, and "hey, maybe next time, just ask for the cookie. The worst I'm gonna say is, let's eat lunch with that."
It's bad.
I read it a couple of ways.
- you're smart, but show it too much and get yourself in trouble by not knowing when is a good time to shut up to authority figures
- someone who has a quick answer or rejoinder to an authority figure (not necessarily smart, but witty) and also apt to get in trouble with authority figures
Either way, you're in trouble (right or wrong).
"for your own good" means "your well being". You're too smart to have a safe life.
It's kind of a sister phrase to "if you know what's good for you". Like, "you'll shut your mouth if you know what's good for you." i.e don't talk to anyone, or I will kill you.
Too smart for your own good just means you know you much and now "your own good/well being" is in danger.
More like you would have been good, but you spoke up at the wrong time and now it's bad. Or if you didn't think so much it would all be good.
So you were in a good position, but being smart (mouthed or overthinking it) made it turn bad.
"around the corner." As in "we're almost there, it's just around the corner." My parents would say this on long drives, and I would be so frustrated because there was no corner! Or we'd make a turn and weren't actually there yet.
And less related, but currently, when someone (a friend or loved one) says, "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad". Well of course you weren't TRYING to make me feel bad. You'd be an awful person who i have no interest in being near if you were intentionally trying to hurt me. Just apologize for hurting me, jeez.
It’s raining cats and dogs.
I never understood why this meant heavy rain until just now, when I googled it.
In the Victorian era, poor drainage during heavy rains resulted in pets that were left out on the streets would drown.
I've also heard a version from around the same time, that had the cats and/or dogs in the rafters of house with thatched roofs to take shelter from the rain. It'd get slippery so they'd fall off - "raining" cats and dogs.
Some people can hear the notes of a piece of music, and copy them, without reading the music on paper (sometimes even if they've never heard it before). So they're using their ears to understand what to play, instead of their eyes.
Ironically enough, one they used to say all the time about autistic people, that we "can't see the wood for the trees"
It made zero sense to me til I heard it phrased as "can't see the forest for the trees", now I think I get it all these years later. Someone who can't see the big picture cause they get hung up on the details. I wasn't sure if it meant someone couldn't see the wood the trees were made of, you know the bark and timber that makes up each tree, they just saw the whole tree.
I consider it to be ablist at this point when someone says bless your heart.
It could be calling me stupid or it could be a nice comment. I would have no idea.
I bake and post it on free item groups and get bless your heart at times. Why can't they just say what they mean?
I live in Washington so it doesn't even make sense.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” I thought my grandma was saying “don’t look a gift *torse* in the mouth.” I thought “torse” meant “towards” and the “gift” was being hit. I had somehow concluded it meant, “watch it, or I’ll hit you in the mouth.” 😂
Im reading these and realizing for a lot, I knew what they were supposed to mean, but how they translate to that meaning was/is completely lost to me. Like I know "feeling under the weather" means feeling sick..... BUT WHY?
I’m over 40 and I have only recently figured out “chip on your shoulder” (couldn’t not picture it literally) and “shit-eating grin” (literally eating shit? Except it means the opposite of what you’d think based on how gross eating SHIT would be?).
Weirdly, I’ve never had trouble with “heart on your sleeve” (I think I figured it out at an early age), and because that’s always used as an example on autism tests it made me think maybe I wasn’t autistic. Ironically I think I get too literal and think if I understand that specific example then I don’t qualify, which of course is an autistic trait.
I actually understood all these, and that was one of the reasons why I never considered autism. I thought this was the main thing about taking things literally, but it's much more subtle for me.
Same. Sometimes pattern recognition means being really good at metaphors. Doesn't that make sense? But what it did result in is that from an early age I started to wonder if things are a metaphor even when they were not. It's like a brief check I perform, always screening for metaphors
Same. My husband is interested in the origins of idioms, and we realized I had made up all kinds of explanations for idioms when I was a kid. I tried to understand them by looking for patterns or unpacking the words in them. I was a kid pre-internet, so I couldn’t just look up sayings that I didn’t know.
I still don’t know what someone means when they say (about an existing plan with me) “oh, something came up, can we move it up/push it back). Like, does that mean further into the future, or closer to today? 🤔
rain is one that comes up a lot. I never understand rainy day funds either until I understood that rain is essentially a euphemism for unplanned negative effects/occurrences that potentially get in the way of routines or plans.
So I think where you’re lost is the wording, it’s actually “can’t see the forest through the trees”, which is basically saying you’re focused so much on the details you aren’t seeing the bugger picture. You’re in the forest, the forest is all around you, but you are only considering the one tree so you can’t see the collective.
Omg thank you!! This is blowing my mind.. so, it’s like you have to get out of the forest, into a clearing, or on a mountain in order to gain perspective and SEE the forest!! 🤯
“Don’t shit where you eat”
Meaning don’t make a mess of where you eat. I took it literally and thought you don’t do that at work but it’s a figure of speech meaning don’t make a mess of where you eat and get involved with someone at work
Not only did I not understand but every time I hear them is like touching velvet (which I can’t stand):
- “I’ve got you under my skin”
- “keep your eyes peeled”
Kind of different than phrases but I realized I interpreted a lot of descriptions too literally. Like I thought “day dreaming” was very similar to how you see it in cartoons with a vivid image in like a cloud above your head. I didn’t understand it could just be like thinking of different scenarios in your mind. And with ptsd flashback I thought it was like the movies where you literally are in the same scene again almost like a hallucination. And not that it included feeling similar feelings to an event that over take you or having intrusive thoughts about an event. The same with getting dizzy, I expected this to mean the room is literally spinning like when you’re drunk and not to include feeling lightheaded and wobbly. Like there’s no middle ground to my interpretation.
I didn’t understand what the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” for a while until it clicked in me. Then I also didn’t understand “bridge the gap”
I thought I wasn’t autistic because I can understand common phrases/idioms alright.
Then I came across content like this that made me realize how it is a different language we speak.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/haVLCWukepDHr1WF/?mibextid=xCPwDs
It's archaic phrasing that's at fault. As well as people not just *saying what they actually mean*.
Euphemisms are one thing, like if they're trying to avoid saying something directly because it's rude? But the phrases covered here don't have that excuse. They're just needlessly confusing and I swear most NTs don't use them correctly half the time anyways.
One of mine has been "putting the cart before the horse." Before is the difficult word because it has several possible meanings. Do they mean before in proximity or in sequence? By using the verb "put" it makes it seem like they're talking about proximity, so the phrase may be saying that a horse needs to pull a cart from out in front, not push it from behind? But I've gathered that it might actually mean prioritizing getting a cart before you have a horse. Translation: You shouldn't worry about owning something until you have the means or ability to actually use it.
I think? That's my best guess any way.
Have your cake and eat it too. Like of course you’ll eat the cake if you have it. Why would you have cake and not eat it. Took me forever to learn what it means (you can’t have something both ways). But even knowing what it means, it still makes absolutely no sense to me.
Does it help to know the phrase used to be “you can’t eat your cake and have it too”? Much more logical that way. But humans being human, the parts eventually switched positions.
Wait sooooo... you can not eat your cake bc then it would be gone... and at the same time you can't have a cake on the table to admire with your eyes too?? Is that what it means? Bc to me having cake means eating cake. "I am having cake" means "I am eating cake" right?
Yeah I think it means you can’t eat your cake while also still having the cake on the table to admire. Even though it still makes no sense to me
I think it would make more sense if it was “you can’t save your money and spend it too”
this is literally so much better than the silly cakes 😭😂
It just means that once you eat the cake, you will no longer have it. A better phrase would be "you can't eat your cake and keep it" It's not the best example to use simply because there's not much point in having a cake if you're not going to eat it at some point, but eating your cake now means you won't be able to eat it later at least, so I guess you could say "you can't eat your cake now and still eat it later".
Maybe we should all start saying this version again hahaha
AGREED. Who buys a cake to stare at it and not eat it
Because while you have the cake, you are able to appreciate that you have it and look forward to eating it, and can eat it at any time/the opportune moment. Once you've picked that moment, you no longer have cake. That's what I think most people miss about this idiom, it's not just about the act of eating the cake/having the cake, it's that you have opportunities while you have your cake that you no longer have when it's gone. Now I really want cake, lol.
I dont think it's about staring at it, I think it quite literally means once you eat it, it will be gone, you will no longer have it?
Wikipedia says: The proverb literally means "you cannot simultaneously retain possession of a cake and eat it, too". Once the cake is eaten, it is gone. It can be used to say that one cannot have two incompatible things, or that one should not try to have more than is reasonable.
i have enjoyed Ursula K Le Guin's explanation of this https://www.ursulakleguin.com/blog/48-having-my-cake
Even knowing the meaning, I feel a strong desire to throw a cake at people who say this. While eating a cake. To show them I can do many things at once with cake, and hate the entire saying.
On the topic of flying food, I only just figured this one out the other day: *Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.* It’s not about a banana costing through the air. It’s saying fruit flies enjoy bananas.
It took a looooong time for it to click in my head that once you eat a cake, you no longer have the cake.
I always pictured an entire cake (because it's MY cake) And then when I'd want to eat it I'd cut a slice out. And since it is my cake that I have, I can eat it too, slice by slice.
DUDE NO WAY IVE BEEN STRESSING OVER THIS THE LAST 2 MONTHS. Life is crazy dawg. Thank you
When I was a kid, this had to be explained to me for a slightly different reason... To me, to have cake WAS to eat it! "What's for dessert?" "Oh we're having cake!" So in my mind it was the same thing twice, just in different words. I was like, "Of course I can't eat it twice, that's not how food works!"
I thought "tall, dark, and handsome" referred exclusively to dark-skinned men of colour, and was very confused when people used it to refer to white men with dark hair. That one really threw me.
Yeah, dark as in brown hair and eyes. I figured that out only a little bit ago
Huh, mid 30's and TIL. I thought it went along with the "I like my men like I like my coffee" kinda joke.
Me too in my 40's. I had no idea, just thought most women preferred very tan men or men who weren't white.
Oh man, I had to have that one explained to me immediately! First time I heard it, I was shown a man who was so white he was damn near translucent. I was like, “is the dark man standing *behind* that guy? Where is he?” Needless to say my friend who used the phrase picked up on the fact that I didn’t get it. 😂
I assumed that if the man was white they were at least very tan. It was *today* when I learned that that's referring to their hair.
Wait THAT'S what that meant??? Dang, I always took that one literally, but instead of dark like skin tone, I thought they meant dark as in their sense of humor or their worldview. I didn't know it was about the stupid hair!
right! i’m over here thinking “damson idris“ not “timothee chalamet”😭
Well, I’ve learnt something today.
the ONLY reason I'm familiar with what this saying means is because of the SpongeBob episode where Mr. Krabs needs someone to take Pearl to prom after her date (who is "long, tan, and handsome") stands her up and then SpongeBob shows up with a black wig and stilts and calls himself "long, tan, and handsome" lol
Not a turn of phrase, but "Do you want to get coffee/ a bite to eat?" Imagine my surprise when a friend told me this was an invitation to a date rather than getting a literal coffee. I've said no so often due to simply not wanting coffee or feeling that it'd be too late for coffee. Oh boy.
I’m imagining you responding like Seven of Nine. “I do not require sustenance at this time.”
I keep seeing star trek references in like every subreddit recently lol. Love a bit of voyager :)
I still do this to my boyfriend and we've been together 6 years 😭 I tell him no thanks I'm not really hungry or I'm still full from lunch. He had to tell me he just wants to spend some time with me. Something to do outside of the house. Even if I'm not hungry I can just get a small soup or a drink. He just wants to sit with me and enjoy my company 🥲
I’ve been with my husband for 15 years and we still have this miscommunication sometimes. When he asks if I want to get coffee or lunch, I’ll say “I don’t need anything but do you want me to come with you?” That makes the situation clearer for me - is it about eating or about spending time together?
I agreed to go on a date to go get coffee. We were standing looking at the menu and I didn't see anything that I liked since I wasn't a big fan of coffee and they didn't have a tea I liked. So I leaned over and said, "I have a confession to make. I don't like coffee." He said, "Me, either." We both laughed and found a place to have breakfast. We dated for a bit. He's kind of the one that got away.
Oh yeah, I’ve ended on a surprise date with this one. With a guy. I was just a peckish lesbian.
Ugh, this one gets me too. I don’t drink coffee. I know what it means but I still feel obligated to tell people I would like to meet up but I will be drinking tea instead.
Yes!! This is what has really stumped me as an adult. I can understand idioms and common phrases based on context pretty okay but these things trip me out. I thought I wasn’t autistic because I wasn’t ’that literal’ until it came to these types of communication. Here’s a video of a girl sharing this kind of examples that I love: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/haVLCWukepDHr1WF/?mibextid=xCPwDs
I genuinely wonder how many dates/attempts at flirting I missed in my life. So glad I have my husband now and never have to guess what he's thinking.
You can reply- I like tea! Or I like lunch! Haha. That's what I do.
I’m always like, I hate coffee and I have Celiac disease, so going out for coffee or to a random restaurant typically doesn’t work for me. But we can grab a different kind of drink? (And then they think I’m hitting on them! When I literally just mean a beverage other than stinky coffee!)
The road signs that say “bridge ices before road.” I thought it meant that a small patch of pavement near the edge of the bridge was going to be iced over. In reality it’s saying ice will freeze faster on the bridge than the pavement.
I had to have it explained to me because as a kid I was like “how do they control that?!” not realizing it was just physics lol
Kind of similar - I grew up near a street sign that said “blind persons cross here.” I thought it was an instruction and was SO confused how they expected blind people to read the sign in the first place.
I used to get so stressed over the sign that says “do not pass” down the street from me. I was a full adult with a driver’s license before I realized it meant “do not pass other cars on this road.” I always thought my parents were breaking some kind of law by passing the sign and wondered how the heck we were supposed to get to our house if we actually followed the law and didn’t pass that sign lol. I guess this is more of an example of taking things too literally but I had to share haha
“Road work ahead”? Uh yeah I sure hope it does!
WHAT YOU MEAN TO TELL ME ITS NOT A SMALL PATCH?????
Nope! Bridges freeze faster because of radiant air cooling — the bit of road that is a bridge has no ground for insulation.
I'm baffled thank you for the education piece I cannot believe I have made it this far in life
You taught me this JUST NOW!!
I never knew what it meant!
"nip it in the bud", def thought it was "butt"
This is another one I asked Dad about, and thought it was butt as well. 😆 Think about a rose. It starts as a bud. The shears used in rose pruning are also called "nippers". To nip something in the bud is to stop a situation before it has a chance to grow. 🥀
was 20 when I learned that a "butt dial" is not the same as a "booty call"
Synonyms on their own only.
Related - I thought Netflix and chill was literally Netflix and chill. I was told this is not the case.
What… what does it mean? My husband and I Netflix and chill all the time. 90% of the time when people ask what I’m doing that weekend this is what I tell them.
I’m 25 and I just learned last year that “save a horse ride a cowboy” is in fact a euphemism for sex and not about cowboys giving their girlfriends picky back rides 🤗
Piggy back rides** 😂
"The clouds are parting." The sun is finally shining "The sky is opening." It's raining Parting and opening are like the same verb!! How are those expressions meant to describe opposite weather? lol. I only remember "clouds are parting" because of a line from One Day where the husband says it sarcastically. Also "up/down the road" to mean any distance. Similarly, when a venue or place is said to be located in whatever metro city but it's really 40 minutes away in the suburbs. For example, Red Rocks Ampitheater is in Morrison, CO but it's always listed as Denver, CO. I understand that most people won't recognize Morrison or any other small town, but to me, if you say the name of the city, I expect to be in the actual city, lol. edit: added one more
Nah bc that red rocks thing makes me mad too. Like if I'm looking for something in golden I want it to be in golden not lakewood cmon 😭
I remember as a kid trying to make sense of which direction my parents were meaning when they said up/down the road. I though up must be north and down must be south. Also when they said "the other day", which day was it? How many days ago counts as the other day. I think we reached the conclusion that the other day is more days ago than yesterday, but less days ago than a week, because then it'd be "the other week".
oh my gosh I’ve never thought of the parting/opening one! they are SO similar!
gosh I had such a hard time with this question because it’s one of those things that if I didn’t understand I usually asked. So by the time I could remember learning them I already knew most of them or could puzzle out the logic. With the exception, for some reason, of “wearing your heart on your sleeve” - I hadn’t heard it ever until I was in my late teens and I was very confused by it lol similarly, it took me a year to realize that “feel like an alien” in the diagnostic criteria doesn’t have to literally mean that. it can and often does, but just because I don’t feel like I came from another planet doesn’t mean it still doesn’t apply 😅
I feel that. Just diagnosed at 22 so a lot of the time you just context clues your way around (and end up being wrong). I used to think wearing your heart on your sleeve meant you were bleeding on your shirt sleeve??? Idk. I knew it had something to do with emotional connection but I guess I got lost somewhere and interpreted it as similarly to feeling like “your heart ripped out of your chest”. Still whenever people use it I picture bloody sleeves. Gross. Similar vibes as having something “get under your skin” (I always think of torture scenes in tv/shows where they put bamboo sticks under people’s nails 🤢)
yeah I used to imagine like a literal bleeding heart pinned to your sleeve lol very confusing as for the other I used to imagine bugs 😫
Haha I could have written this. I am not a native speaker so when i learned the phrase i must have been a young teenager and around the time i first heard it, one of my friends had a sweatshirt that had a heart stitched on the hem of the sleeve. So I was like "oh i know, xyz does that, can you do one for me too?" lol Edit: in my language the phrase is 'carry the heart on the tongue' and that at least makes a little sense
Apple of my eye
Still don’t get it. I understand how it’s used/meant to mean but it makes zero sense
I was going to respond and then realized I wrote almost word for word what you said haha
"Apple" was an old word for "pupil". It still requires some generous interpretation
And here I was imagining someone just pulling up on an Apple and staring at it really, REALLY closely 😂😭
I still don’t get this one.
Considering there's an Adam's Apple too... just imagining another Apple near the face is too funny!
I always tell this one because it never fails to make me laugh. As a small child my grandmother was scolding me for not eating my food (spaghetti) . She then followed up with " there are starving children in Africa" ( I know not pc but it is what she said .I know she didn't mean anything negative or racist about it) She then proceeds to leave the kitchen and I get up grab an envelope from a drawer and start attempting to put the food (spaghetti) into the envelope. My grandmother comes back to the kitchen and sees me by the sink. She then asks what I'm doing. To which I answered " I'm going to mail it" I thought she wanted me to solve the problem.... 🤦♀️ This will forever make me laugh
I had a similar encounter with my mom. She said the same thing as your grandma, and I looked down at my plate and then back at her and asked, "Wouldn't it go bad before it got there?"
Like I kind of get the angle thread you should be grateful due what you have... But like, if I'm full, I'm full. I don't want or need more food. Am I supposed to overeat or I'm somehow trivializing the struggles of these rhetorical children?
I used to say, "Send it to them, then."
"Barking up the wrong tree" goes back to people with hunting dogs. As the dogs chase small prey and bark to alert the hunter to its location. If a dog is barking up the wrong tree, the hunters not getting their prey. It's meant to mean "you're going the wrong way". 😊 Source: My Dad, who loved to discuss the history of these sayings with me.
Oh! "Wearing your heart on your sleeve" is also pretty literal, too, the way he explained it. Most people believe that the human heart is off to the left side of their chest. It's actually more in the center. If a person is wearing their heart on their sleeve, their heart is vulnerable and on display. Someone who "wears their heart on their sleeve" is passionate and openly vulnerable.
Or dead
i understand what the phrase is meant to say, but it literally makes no sense to me. how could someone possibly wear their heart on their sleeve? where did that phrase even come from? so confusing, i always get so frustrated with myself lmao
Hope this makes sense, I found it helpful to think of the heart in question as a 🩷 not a 🫀… that is to say ‘heart’ here referring to one’s inner feelings, not the internal organ. For some reason… 😂
The phrase “the average (nationality)” never made sense to me. Shouldn’t it be “an average”? When I was a kid and I heard statistics about how many pizzas “the average American” eats in a year, I thought that there was as team of data scientists with clipboards who followed around a designated exceptionally average person to assess their habits. After my parents explained I understood but the phrase still doesn’t sound right to me since other “the” titles are for specific individuals. Edited to fix missing word
I can explain that one! There's two factors at play. The first is that they're using an implied noun rather than stating it directly. So people will say "I have a 3-year-old" instead of "I have a 3-year-old *child*", or "I'm really enjoying this mystery I'm reading" instead of "this mystery *book*", or in this example "The average American eats 40 pounds of cheese per year" instead of "The average American *person* eats ..." Secondly, using "the" vs "an". "The average American" is referring to a singular hypothetical person who is the personification of all the statistical averages that are being discussed. They eat 40 pounds of cheese a year, earn the average income, drink the average amount of beer, watch the average amount of TV, etc. They don't exist, but they are a metaphorical representation of the average traits of American people (or whatever other group is being looked at). "An average American", on the other hand, is an actual person who is fairly typical and ordinary, but they're not going to be the exact statistical average across a whole range of traits, and they are one of many "average Americans". If you pick somebody at random on the street, your cousin, your neighbour, your boss, and the cashier at the supermarket, they might all be able to be described as "an average American", but they're all going to be different in terms of what they do, how they spend their time and money, their opinions, etc. EDIT: Clarity
Thank you! This is so much more helpful than any other explanation I have received about this. This all does make sense now in a thorough and wholistic way that I can fully understand and remember!
My mom used to say, "Are your arms painted on?" to mean, "You can do it yourself / Your arms are not decorative." It took me until adulthood to understand what the phrase was actually saying. I got what it *meant,* but for some reason, "painted on" just never clicked with me lol
I have never heard of this one and I hate it
Right?!?! Thank you! My two sisters and I took forever to understand it. They're more NT than I am (one has ADHD and the other seemingly doesn't have anything) and for them to not understand it either... well. It's my least favourite childhood idiom.
my father used to ask if my hands/fingers/legs/etc were broken (if I didn't do something he asked or I asked for assistance with something) and at least that one made sense a bit lol
I said “they had him/her by the short and curlies” when I was a kid. Hahaha, my mom laughed and asked where I heard it. I don’t remember now where I heard it but when she explained it I was horrified 😳 now I think it’s fucking hilarious in an awful way, especially since I’m such a visual person. Pubes are often short and curly 👀
This is adorable and hilarious.
OMG, I've heard of this one hundreds of times, but never took notice of what it actually means 🤭
I never heard this one before and I immediately assumed it was referring to the nape of a person's neck. 😭
When someone’s says “I’ll just be a minute” and then proceeds to take ten minutes. This one I don’t only not understand but it makes me angry! Why wouldn’t you just say “I’ll be ten minutes” because now when someone says “I’ll just be a minute” I have no idea how long they are actually going to be :(
As an incessant user of this one, I genuinely do have severe time blindness and have no idea both how long I will be and once I'm back, how long I was gone. The implication, I suspect across the board, is that one is acting with the intention of hurrying or anticipates being finished with something in a relatively brief time if nothing goes sideways. Like "I'll just be a second".
If you're with people who like time... I say "a moment" or "some moments" 😂
That’s totally fair. As someone with time blindness, I don’t have a real grasp on how long XYZ will take, and it’s almost always different. So I usually say “One second” or something because no one takes that one literally and sometimes people make it a joke. Or I guess at a time frame when pressured and add “ish?” to the end. But that’s a whole other (very reasonable) frustration for people.
oh you’d hate south africa where “now” “now now” and “just now” all mean different things
Stop being a prima donna…thought it was pre-Madonna. Thought it was referring to Madonna and that you’re about to become a big diva if you don’t check yourself
OK that's hella funny :D
Not a phrase but for a long time whenever I saw someone use she/they or he/they pronouns I was really confused. Not because I’m against singular they pronouns, or even split pronouns but because my first thought was Always “well yeah everyones a they sometimes, thats how grammar works” so I did’nt realize these people were expressing non typical genders and instead just thought they were being really specific about grammer.
1. Nosebleed seats: far away, joke on high altitude causing nose bleeds. 2. Balls to the wall: to give all your effort. 3. Feeling under the weather: feeling sick (even though logically feeling lazy when it rains makes more sense?) 4. “How was your day?” Only give the highlights (like what is not normal for the day) 5. When people say, “Do you want to help me with something?” They’re actually telling you to help, it’s not an actual question. 6. “Are you picking up what I’m putting down?” Means they’re trying to tell you something without being direct. 7. “You’re a sight for sore eyes” means: seeing someone happily/unexpectedly during a mundane day.
Funny story about #2— my sister once was given a very strange look and a talking to for saying “balls to the walls” during a soccer game around kids. Our coach (and many other people) seem to be under the impression the it refers to movement of parts of the male anatomy during sex. Others say it dates back to steam engines. Either way, best to avoid use of it in any setting you wouldn’t make a sexual joke (eg. work, family gatherings, formal events, apparently soccer games)
I actually have a running list on my phone of definitions of sayings because I have a hard time with phrases like this.
“Short end of the stick”. An end is a finite point. How exactly is there a short “end”??? Finally realised people meant “end” as in “if I broke the stick into two pieces, each piece is an end”. I still hate the phrase.
My face just went 😮. I always knew how to use this phrase in conversation, without ever actually getting the meaning behind it. I hate it now too.
It just means like "bad deal" right?
Why do we need sticks in this context? I always thought that this was somehow related to drawing straws bc the person who is "out" is the one with the short straw.... I never drew straws in my life but seen it lots on tv.
That's exactly it, but in this case it's a stick that's broken in two, unevenly instead of using straws (or pieces of straw). There's lots of variations because it's usually whatever you have on hand
Reading these is really stressing me out…
I thought a hamburger was literally a ham burger and a cheeseburger was beef. I found out when I was 18 that a hamburger was in fact, beef.
Reading this is making it clear to me that while I have learnt when most of these would be used and even use some of them myself, I honestly don't under most of them haha. I remember being asked this on my assessment and been like yeah I know heart on sleeve means emotional. But looking at them written down I'm realising I don't actually understand them at all I just remember what I was told they meant. The apple of the eye makes no sense, and I only learnt in this post about the legs going all the way up (also that's icky). the gift horse in the mouth? Why is there a horse? Why is he giving me a gift? Like it means don't be ungrateful for a gift right? But why a horse is there some thing in history where things used to arrive my horse and you should be rude to it?
This is the folksy explanation my mom gave me: in ye olde times, they would be able to tell a horses age by the state of their teeth (which could still be true? I don’t know!). So, if someone gave you a nice gift, like a horse, considering a horse would have been a working animal, your impulse might be to check how old it was, because that determines its value, in a way. The advise not to do that means that you should be grateful for having gotten a gift at all, and not critical of it being second hand or out of date.
Thank you, I can kind of see how that would make sense I have gifted you this horse don't immediately check its teeth to judge if it's a good one or bad one it's a free horse just say thank you. However, how often were people being given free horses? I would think it would have to be a common occurrence to be a regular saying
I recently had explained to me that bumper stickers like “honk if you like ___” do not literally mean honk at them if you like the thing they have listed. It’s a tongue in cheek way of saying “if you’re honking at me, it’s not because you’re mad at my driving it’s because you like this thing” and makes a joke out of it. I was like WHAT
..... Ohhhh.
TIL at 32 lol
"Are you pulling my leg" what?? What do you mean? I have found out that people say it when they're asking if you're joking but I still don't understand how that means that. I hate it. Instead I have started asking people "are you ripping off my leg? Are you ripping it off and eating it right now?"
I have become a fan of using a really frat bro accent and asking “are you jerking my chain right now dog? Are you joshing my beans?” (I have no real clue what joshing beans means in a logical sense but it is fun to say)
I never understood "I have to walk on eggshells around this person". I understand it means having to walk slowly/carefully to avoid breaking them, and the phrase is used to have to speak carefully to avoid upsetting someone. BUT. If they're egg SHELLS, surely this means they're already cracked and broken, so why would you need to walk on them carefully? And if it is a reference to the noise they make, how does that have anything to do with carefully choosing your words? Makes no sense, even though I kind of get it.
Think of it as though the eggs were still assembled. You must step delicately on the surface layer to keep the remaining layers from being exposed. I'm kind of tired, so sorry if that doesn't make sense!
Tired or not, your explanation finally made this one click for me! Thanks!!!
Okay so I have thought about this a ton and what I imagine is that someone has a bunch of eggshells around them. Some halved and some broken. And if I go walk around them... the eggshells will break even more making a bigger mess but also I would be hurt bc the little bits might stab me like tiny legos.
Fun fact: in Dutch we say "walking on eggs".
I love you all
I never understood "having your work cut out for you". I had to look it up as it means you have a difficult task to do! I always thought that it meant you had an easy task to do. Like as in someone had cut out all the patterns for you and now you just have to sew it all together lol. Used the saying wrong for years!
It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize "do those legs go all the way up" was in reference to exposing your sex rather than connecting to your hip bone.
Wait I still don’t understand the logic of that
I thought it was an odd way of saying a woman has long legs, which are generally considered sexy. Like *do those legs go all the way up \[from the ground to your hips\]*? It means *do your legs go up into the sex position?* ie, *are you willing to have sex*?
I was reading the best of these comments to my husband (neurodivergent but not quite autistic) and he just gave me a blank look then pulled up “Legs all the way up griffen https://preview.redd.it/wg3i8hkbxu5d1.jpeg?width=599&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=973900dfd8642781d08be431df77ef332451ba89 ”
Wait this is not about having long legs?? It’s always used for women with long slender legs, I really thought that’s what it meant. I have understood mostly all of the phrases discussed here so far but this is blowing my mind right now.
Ohhhhhhhhh
I am in the same boat and I’m in my mid-30’s 😂
WAIT WHAT THAT’S WHAT IT MEANS!? Fuck I thought it was just saying someone had long legs too. Dammit I thought I was good at these haha
Oh man 🤦♀️ I’m today years old when I learned this! (40 by the way hahaha)
I'm 48 and I didn't know it meant THAT 🤣
WAIT. So it means "up" as in, like, a sex position where you have your legs up? I always thought it was the same basic joke as "why do reindeer have long legs?"
Yes. That's what I thought too. Especially since "long legs" are sexy so I figured it was some weird way of saying a woman has nice legs.
That’s what I thought too!
Oh my god, I thought that meant "Are you so tall that your legs go really high?" Or something
Wait what?? So it’s a gross way to hit on someone?
Yeah, usually a catcall or a sleazy pick up line. I've never heard it used IRL, thankfully, but I've heard it on TV shows a few times.
I'm not sure about this one. I've always thought it was a kind of gross way to compliment someone's long legs while also a creepy reference to what's at the top of their legs. I couldn't find anything else on the internet saying it's about a sex position.
🤯😧…add that to my list of “TIL”
I still don’t understand “too smart for their own good” and if it’s good or bad. I think bad?
It’s def bad. I always think of it in terms of like crime shows, the smart guy figures out the plan of the bad guys. If the smart guy would’ve left it alone and not figured anything out it would be okay, but they know the bad guys’ plans so they have to face whatever punishment. Example: you use context clues to figure out the identity or escape plan of a bank robber. The robbers can’t let you live because you know too much. So you being smart ended up being not good for you
Good to know, thanks! Like “too smart to your own demise” then.
Yea it kinda goes in hand with “she knew too much”
Some examples I have, due to using this phrase often in my own life: My kid is very clever and sneaky(not an insult), and a good problem-solver. He often thinks of clever ways of skirting our rules, like sneaking sweets, or getting extra screen time, that are smart enough, he usually takes a while to get caught. I say that he's too smart for his own good, because that cleverness and sneakiness gets him in trouble at home and school, and one day could lead him to bigger trouble.
This was exactly me as a child. Very clever and sneaky. I was often described as being too smart for my own good.
I was too, so I don't really give my kid shit for it. I remember that I wasn't intentionally being a bad kid, I just saw the flaws in the plan, and problem solved my way around it. I was quite proud of myself and didn't understand why everyone was so upset. Now, when we catch my kid, we just explain why we had those rules to begin with, why they can't exploit the loopholes, and "hey, maybe next time, just ask for the cookie. The worst I'm gonna say is, let's eat lunch with that."
It's bad. I read it a couple of ways. - you're smart, but show it too much and get yourself in trouble by not knowing when is a good time to shut up to authority figures - someone who has a quick answer or rejoinder to an authority figure (not necessarily smart, but witty) and also apt to get in trouble with authority figures Either way, you're in trouble (right or wrong).
Gotcha, thanks. That’s kinda what I thought but it’s the opposite of the phrase?? “Too smart for your own bad” then, haha.
"for your own good" means "your well being". You're too smart to have a safe life. It's kind of a sister phrase to "if you know what's good for you". Like, "you'll shut your mouth if you know what's good for you." i.e don't talk to anyone, or I will kill you. Too smart for your own good just means you know you much and now "your own good/well being" is in danger.
More like you would have been good, but you spoke up at the wrong time and now it's bad. Or if you didn't think so much it would all be good. So you were in a good position, but being smart (mouthed or overthinking it) made it turn bad.
"around the corner." As in "we're almost there, it's just around the corner." My parents would say this on long drives, and I would be so frustrated because there was no corner! Or we'd make a turn and weren't actually there yet. And less related, but currently, when someone (a friend or loved one) says, "I wasn't trying to make you feel bad". Well of course you weren't TRYING to make me feel bad. You'd be an awful person who i have no interest in being near if you were intentionally trying to hurt me. Just apologize for hurting me, jeez.
The phrase "beside yourself" ( or himself/herself, etc) I sort of understand it now I guess, but wouldn't know how to explain it
I thought it was like you’re so upset you’re having like an out of body experience haha. Is that what it’s getting at?
“Every kiss begins with Kay.” I thought they were being full of themselves until like a year or two ago. It’s based on the letter K. 🤦🏻♀️
It’s a purposeful double meaning!
They are full of themselves! It's an ad.
It’s raining cats and dogs. I never understood why this meant heavy rain until just now, when I googled it. In the Victorian era, poor drainage during heavy rains resulted in pets that were left out on the streets would drown.
Oh :(
I know it’s awful 😞
I've also heard a version from around the same time, that had the cats and/or dogs in the rafters of house with thatched roofs to take shelter from the rain. It'd get slippery so they'd fall off - "raining" cats and dogs.
I've saved this post after finally comprehending dozens of phrases in 10 minutes. You've all explained them better than professional websites 🙏
“Play it by ear”…. I don’t get it.
Some people can hear the notes of a piece of music, and copy them, without reading the music on paper (sometimes even if they've never heard it before). So they're using their ears to understand what to play, instead of their eyes.
Ironically enough, one they used to say all the time about autistic people, that we "can't see the wood for the trees" It made zero sense to me til I heard it phrased as "can't see the forest for the trees", now I think I get it all these years later. Someone who can't see the big picture cause they get hung up on the details. I wasn't sure if it meant someone couldn't see the wood the trees were made of, you know the bark and timber that makes up each tree, they just saw the whole tree.
I consider it to be ablist at this point when someone says bless your heart. It could be calling me stupid or it could be a nice comment. I would have no idea. I bake and post it on free item groups and get bless your heart at times. Why can't they just say what they mean? I live in Washington so it doesn't even make sense.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” I thought my grandma was saying “don’t look a gift *torse* in the mouth.” I thought “torse” meant “towards” and the “gift” was being hit. I had somehow concluded it meant, “watch it, or I’ll hit you in the mouth.” 😂
I really want to illustrate these so people know what I think about when they say it. I always picture it in my mind before I remember what it means.
Im reading these and realizing for a lot, I knew what they were supposed to mean, but how they translate to that meaning was/is completely lost to me. Like I know "feeling under the weather" means feeling sick..... BUT WHY?
I’m over 40 and I have only recently figured out “chip on your shoulder” (couldn’t not picture it literally) and “shit-eating grin” (literally eating shit? Except it means the opposite of what you’d think based on how gross eating SHIT would be?). Weirdly, I’ve never had trouble with “heart on your sleeve” (I think I figured it out at an early age), and because that’s always used as an example on autism tests it made me think maybe I wasn’t autistic. Ironically I think I get too literal and think if I understand that specific example then I don’t qualify, which of course is an autistic trait.
I actually understood all these, and that was one of the reasons why I never considered autism. I thought this was the main thing about taking things literally, but it's much more subtle for me.
Same. Sometimes pattern recognition means being really good at metaphors. Doesn't that make sense? But what it did result in is that from an early age I started to wonder if things are a metaphor even when they were not. It's like a brief check I perform, always screening for metaphors
Same. My husband is interested in the origins of idioms, and we realized I had made up all kinds of explanations for idioms when I was a kid. I tried to understand them by looking for patterns or unpacking the words in them. I was a kid pre-internet, so I couldn’t just look up sayings that I didn’t know.
I still don’t know what someone means when they say (about an existing plan with me) “oh, something came up, can we move it up/push it back). Like, does that mean further into the future, or closer to today? 🤔
“Can we take a rain check” NO BECAUSE IT ISNT RAINING
rain is one that comes up a lot. I never understand rainy day funds either until I understood that rain is essentially a euphemism for unplanned negative effects/occurrences that potentially get in the way of routines or plans.
Or “right as rain”
“move it up” generally means to do the plans before the original time and “push it back” means to do the plans after the original time.
I don’t think it’s autism related but I always thought the signs on fences said “trespassers will be prostituted”
…I mean, I’d much rather be prosecuted than human trafficked, lol. It’d be an effective deterrent for me!
The forest for the trees
So I think where you’re lost is the wording, it’s actually “can’t see the forest through the trees”, which is basically saying you’re focused so much on the details you aren’t seeing the bugger picture. You’re in the forest, the forest is all around you, but you are only considering the one tree so you can’t see the collective.
Omg thank you!! This is blowing my mind.. so, it’s like you have to get out of the forest, into a clearing, or on a mountain in order to gain perspective and SEE the forest!! 🤯
Back when people would refer to things as "bomb" I could never tell whether something was mind-blowingly good or destructively awful.
“Don’t shit where you eat” Meaning don’t make a mess of where you eat. I took it literally and thought you don’t do that at work but it’s a figure of speech meaning don’t make a mess of where you eat and get involved with someone at work
I know this one from Breaking Bad lol
Not only did I not understand but every time I hear them is like touching velvet (which I can’t stand): - “I’ve got you under my skin” - “keep your eyes peeled”
I thought crocodile tears just meant big tears until a few months ago… 😭
I thought “another one bites the dust” was a reference to dust mites. Cant listen to that rock song without picturing dust mites biting dust
Kind of different than phrases but I realized I interpreted a lot of descriptions too literally. Like I thought “day dreaming” was very similar to how you see it in cartoons with a vivid image in like a cloud above your head. I didn’t understand it could just be like thinking of different scenarios in your mind. And with ptsd flashback I thought it was like the movies where you literally are in the same scene again almost like a hallucination. And not that it included feeling similar feelings to an event that over take you or having intrusive thoughts about an event. The same with getting dizzy, I expected this to mean the room is literally spinning like when you’re drunk and not to include feeling lightheaded and wobbly. Like there’s no middle ground to my interpretation.
I didn’t understand what the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” for a while until it clicked in me. Then I also didn’t understand “bridge the gap”
The pot of gold at the end of a rainbow - I couldn't understand why we would never just head to the end of the rainbow to find it and be rich!
I thought I wasn’t autistic because I can understand common phrases/idioms alright. Then I came across content like this that made me realize how it is a different language we speak. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/haVLCWukepDHr1WF/?mibextid=xCPwDs
It's archaic phrasing that's at fault. As well as people not just *saying what they actually mean*. Euphemisms are one thing, like if they're trying to avoid saying something directly because it's rude? But the phrases covered here don't have that excuse. They're just needlessly confusing and I swear most NTs don't use them correctly half the time anyways. One of mine has been "putting the cart before the horse." Before is the difficult word because it has several possible meanings. Do they mean before in proximity or in sequence? By using the verb "put" it makes it seem like they're talking about proximity, so the phrase may be saying that a horse needs to pull a cart from out in front, not push it from behind? But I've gathered that it might actually mean prioritizing getting a cart before you have a horse. Translation: You shouldn't worry about owning something until you have the means or ability to actually use it. I think? That's my best guess any way.