Mine is tow the line rather than toe the line.
I imagine someone as a tugboat–towing the line of what is expected. I like that imagery better than keeping a foot on some fucking line. Plus using toe as a verb is dumb.
What are yours?
Recently the lyrics just clicked for the Smiths song How Soon is Now. I thought he says “I am the sun and the air” as more of a metaphor, but he says “I am the son and the heir.”
Most people misconstrue the phrase “blood is thicker than water”. The WHOLE phrase is “blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb”. It literally means the opposite of what most people think it does.
No, it really means exactly what most people think it does:
The other day I heard someone say “fuck around and find out” to mean “experiment to discover the correct path” and was really amused by that concept.
“Work cut out for you”
I always thought I meant that the job was made easier. Like in carpentry, if someone makes your cuts for you, half the job is done!
I mean it kind of does. The whole point is that it’s really easy to “see” the work because it’s such a giant mess
more of a misheard lyrics, but the song “The Freshmen” by the Verve Pipe hits a bit different if you thought they were singing:
For the life of me, I cannot remember What made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise For the life of me, I cannot believe We’d ever die for these sins, we were merely flesh then
not sure if it qualifies but my father used to say assburn when pronouncing aspirin. I like his pronunciation better.
Not an idiom but still an amusing anecdote.
For the longest time, in my online vocabulary, POC meant “piece of crap”. And then a few years back I started seeing posts and articles where this and that person was referred to as a POC, and it took me a while of thinking “that’s a bit harsh, though?”, until I realized that my three decades old IRC lingo had to be updated.
I can live without my original definition, as POS serves the same purpose. Plus, my earlier use had no connection to skin tone, but using it as “Piece of Crap” today gives some racist undertones that I don’t want to be associated with.
POS=Point Of Sale…
That guy is a real POS! (Piece Of Shit)
That is how I heard it before a job where they kept calling the computer a POS and I thought ‘it isn’t that bad, better than the register from the prior job’ for a couple weeks before someone called it a Point of Sale.
I am convinced most retail workers refer to the system by sharing my interpretation of POS…
Yeah, I can’t imagine how the people who named it POS would do it unironically!
It’s so funny whenever I hear that acronym used professionally.
“Oh yeah? you’re pretty psyched about your new enterprise grade POS system? Sounds awesome…”
Sure, it means point of sale, but it only means that in this one context…
Why does “piece of crap” have racist undertones?
It doesn’t. It’s also relatively uncommon–most people would say “piece of shit”.
In a vacuum it doesn’t, but the connotation of a more modern interpretation of the abbreviation would probably result in many interpreting any insistence from me as “Person of color” = “piece of crap”.
Mine is FTFY as fuck that fuck you.
I forgot about FTFY. I don’t know if I’ve seen it on lemmy
I can’t help but read FTW as “Fuck the what” at first most times I see it. It just sounds so silly.
Because of a movie (I don’t remember the name, I don’t remember the plot), I thought it meant Fuck The World
Also a number of punk songs titled FTW. The Dwarves come to mind.
SMH = so much hate
Though not an idiom, mine was thinking for years that “QFT” meant “quite fucking true”. Probably thought it for so long because it works (it means/meant “quoted for truth”–it was super common in WoW’s heyday, though I haven’t seen it in a while now).
So uh, what’s in supposed to mean according to the mainstream?
“Fixed that for you.”
What? My interpretation is “For the future you” lol
Ohhh
“it was at this moment, Bub realized why many of their online forum discussions may have ended with them being banned.”
In Sweden we have this expression:
“Måla inte fan på väggen” - “Don’t paint the devil on the wall”
It simply menas to stop worrying and get on with it.
I have added stuff to it twice.
First time:
“Måla inte fan på väggen fören han står i farstun” - “Don’t paint the devil on the wall until he stands in the hallway”
This means, stop worrying, and get on with it, but if shit happens, be sure to document it.
Second time:
“Måla inte fan på väggen fören han står i farstun, men det skadar inte att ha färgen hemma” - “Don’t paint the devil on the wall until he stands in the hallway, but it doesn’t hurt to keep the paint ready”
This means, stop worrying, and get on with it, but be ready to document it if shit hit the fan.
Superstition: The phrase comes from an old European superstition (popular in Germany) that drawing an image of the devil would actually summon him or attract misfortune.
Do you work in manufacturing or something? Research?
Finance
Not quite what you’re asking for, but when I first heard the phrase “balls to the wall”, I thought that it alluded to testicles. One of the Grand Theft Auto games has some radio audio that uses it satirically in this sense as well (“Lazlow, get your balls to the wall” or something similar).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/balls_to_the_wall
First attested in the 1960s in the context of aviation, in reference to ball-shaped grips on an aircraft’s engine controls (typically throttle, prop pitch and fuel mixture). Pushing these “balls to the wall” would put the aircraft at maximum thrust.[1][2] Analogous to pedal to the metal. Not related to the term balls-out, which refers to a ball governor on a steam engine.[3] Neither balls-out nor balls to the wall is connected with the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”) except via folk etymology.
EDIT: The GTA audio in question (the song itself used the phrase satirically, and the announcer does as well):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVWwG6RJrLA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balls_to_the_Wall_(album)
Balls to the Wall is the fifth studio album by German heavy metal band Accept, released in 1983. It is Accept’s only record to attain Gold certification in the US.[1] The album’s title track became Accept’s signature song and remains a metal anthem and trademark in the genre.
Pushing these “balls to the wall” would put the aircraft at maximum thrust.
I see what you did there
unfortunately “thrust” is the accurate aircraft term 😭
fortunately
When I was a kid I thought the expression, the coast is clear, was actually, the ghost is clear, which makes sense that the ghost would be transparent but had nothing to do with a situation being safe enough to proceed with whatever you were doing. But I’m originally from Texas, where we have tons of idioms and colloquialisms that don’t make sense, so I just went with it.
I honestly like “milk toast” over milquetoast.
I always thought of it being so plain or bland having it made sense. Rather than a reference to a 1920s comic character.
Also, it doesn’t really fit but a coworker uses the phrase
“we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it”
This is more of a fix of two phrases which is we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and don’t burn your bridges.
I love mixing idioms, that one in particular is fun to use.
I’m also a fan of “throw caution to the wolves”.
“we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it”
I use that so much I legitimately forget the whole “cross that bridge” when I’m in serious conversation.
does the pope shit in the woods?
Fun fact! The blending of idioms is called a malaphor! They’re a lot more common than you’d expect and I deliberately use them because I think they’re more fun.
You aren’t entirely wrong… The comic character was named after milk toast, because it’s so plain and bland.
“we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it”
When used in a fitting situation, that’s one I’ve always really liked.
My previous boss used to say “We’ll blow that bridge when we get there”
When I was young, I thought it was “Make ends meat”. Like poor cuts of meat, because you have no money.
Instead of having money left over by the time you get paid again.
Oh wow!.. Me too, until just now.
For the traditional toe the line imagery, it helps to imagine a very rebellious kid that you have firmly told to absolutely not cross some line under any circumstances.
Imagine the kid looking you dead in the eye and smirking, as they stretch out their big toe and put it all over the line while barely not crossing it.
This captures the aspect that you don’t have to follow the spirit of the rules or believe in them in any way, you simply have to follow the letter of the instruction to be “toeing the line”. There is an inherent malicious coloring to the term that is important, where people that only toe the line are bad people.
edit: It needs to imply that you’re searching for ways to break a rule and get away with it on a technicality.
edit2: This got me curious enough to google the origin of the term, and it actually has a wikipedia article, amusingly. Apparently it has a military origin, and the article makes no mention of the negative connotations I mentioned. This makes me think my personal interpretation is actually incorrect, and I now wonder why I picked up on it. In the US, toeing the line does have a subtle negative connotation to it, and people that do it are looked down on somewhat.
This is vastly different than my understanding of the phrase. I understand it to mean something similar to “fall in line”. As in conform to some standard. I think it was supposed to have originated in the military where they would have a literal piece of tape in the ground at the foot of your bunk. When a drill sergeant or officer would come through you were expected to “toe the line”. Meaning stand at attention with your toes exactly touching the line.
Exactly I don’t think @carrolade@lemmy.world understands how the phrase is used colloquially.
Its most often heard in the form “toe the party line”, as in political party. Members will have their own feelings and they can discuss them privately perhaps but in public they will sure as he’ll toe the party line and repeat whatever the party policy is, without any dissent.
The same dynamic I was discussing appears in that case as well. The politician may not agree with the policy, and may be willing to violate it, but still toes the party line.
If someone was doing something somewhat shady, but still keeping within the bounds of some rule, you might say they are similarly toeing that line.
The big question to me has become, can you toe a line in a positive way?
Positive would probably be more commonly seen as an after effect I would think. “It’s good that we toed the line here or we’d have had trouble.”
I think it’s because it’s generally given as guidance beforehand (which doesn’t necessitate positive or negative) and evaluated for positive or negative afterward.
The big question to me has become, can you toe a line in a positive way?
Yes. People within the party think it’s positive to “toe the party line”. Anyone conforming to what you think is positive is “toeing the line” in a way you’d find positive.
Except that in my experience, even a supporter of said party, when talking about how a member of ours “just toes the line” is communicating a negative, not a positive. That’s not a good, genuine guy we’re proud of, it’s someone to watch out for.
Colloquially too, the way I was raised, it’s a bad thing, you did not want to be a line-toer. And I’m not referring to discussions of politics, but how it was used in day to day conversation. I’ve been accused of toeing lines, for instance, with the implication being that continuing may get me in trouble some day and I should be a little more careful.
Perhaps it’s a regional thing.
I don’t necessarily think it is regional. I think it’s contextual. Within the party someone might be told “we need you to toe the line” if that person has been known to go rogue. It depends on what the line being toed is and the speakers thoughts on that line.
LOL. Its ok to just be wrong sometimes mate.
But it’s also OK to seek more information about a topic you were incorrect about. We shouldn’t chastise what seems to be genuine curiosity.
Yeah, I just made another edit to my original comment. lol
Eh I’m in the US and wouldn’t say it’s a negative connotation so much as firm or strict one. More neutral than positive or negative. That said…it’s also slightly contextual though.
Regular context of guiding a kid or a team that’s been in trouble for something(“we better toe the line going forward”), it’s more neutral. But you can use it slightly derisively for someone that’s a stickler or brown noser, (“Don’t do anything cheeky around Dan, he really toes the line and will go tattle to the manager.”)
Anyways, just throwing my two cents to the wind.
I like that imagery better than keeping a foot on some fucking line. Plus using toe as a verb is dumb.
When I was a kid, the school gymnasiums had many different painted lines, delineating boundaries for basketball courts and other games. Gym teachers would often start activities by getting the students to line up on one of these lines, a position from which we could all see what the teacher wanted to demonstrate. We’d put our toes on the line. We would literally “toe the line.” That’s not a metaphor, not an imaginary image. I would guess common usage comes from the military more than from gym class.
Exactly. “Toe the line” is track & field terminology.
