Dead metaphors in English we no longer notice

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BobG said:
No, the salute originated in the middle ages and was originally to show the person you came across that you were unarmed.
I understood that the salute originated from armoured knights raising their face guards so as to be recognized.
 
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Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split ya.

A neighbor use to say that every time you left his house...aagghhhhh!
 
Men are pigs.

Girls are bugs.


Hmm. Maybe those haven't outgrown their usefulness!
 
"The rule of thumb" was an old English law allowing a husband to beat his wife with a switch no larger circumference than the size of his thumb. It was thought to be a good or general measure. Hence, the modern meaning of the term.
 
BobG said:
"Put a sock in it." (Old gramaphones didn't have a volume control, so a sock was used to make the music quieter).
And all this time I thought it pertained to keeping a certain part of the body warm. Oh! That's "in" it - got it.
Huckleberry said:
...soylent green is people! (perhaps not a metaphor but I like to yell it loudly at inopportune times, hospitals, movie theathres, coitus).
If you want some real excitement, just yell "Bingo" in a bingo hall. :bugeye:
Danger said:
[Regarding beating around the bush] Although I'm not positive, I believe that it referred to flushing game out of hiding during hunting.
Right, that would be followed by going off half-cocked. (hehe)
Selfless said:
"The rule of thumb" was an old English law allowing a husband to beat his wife with a switch no larger circumference than the size of his thumb. It was thought to be a good or general measure. Hence, the modern meaning of the term.
It's a good thing you clarified this--I was about to see where the Tsu Mobile was. Welcome to PF. :smile:
 
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SOS2008 said:
Right, that would be followed by going off half-cocked.
Hey, there are no guarantees at my age. :frown:
 
BobG said:
The handshake is more ancient. While a few suppose the reason for its origin could be similar to that of the salute, its origin goes back beyond recorded history and isn't really known (the Egyptians explained that the handshake was a gift from God, for example).
I heard that some ancient people would wave in the opposite direction (toward themself) to mean "may you come back." Anyone know if this is true?
 
SOS2008 said:
I heard that some ancient people would wave in the opposite direction (toward themself) to mean "may you come back." Anyone know if this is true?

I took a peek on a few sites and didn't find anything about hand waving in an opposite direction, but I did see one site that said what most countries would consider a wave with the palm out and fingers spread moving in a side to side fashion is actually considered to mean "get away". In order to say "come here"
... well here's the site I saw that on. http://www.explorecrete.com/mycrete/customs/greek-gestures.html

If your really curious I saw a book for sale by William Griffith called simple "Greek Gestures".


Huck
 
Looks like I'm a day late, and in my case 2 cents short. :smile: The book on Greek gestures probably covers a lot more than waving good-bye. Hmm... :-p
 
Mk said:
Oh really? What did the original metaphor mean?
That is the original metaphor, the new one has been improved to just "Beat on Bush"
 
We must all cultivate vital metaphors in our prose garden.
 
Mehhaaa! Muy Aweseomo! I'm getting tired of burning and ripping CDs, and I'm freezing. I think I'll put on my coat made of mink fur, and go eat a grilled sub sandwitch...
 
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2CentsWorth said:
The book on Greek gestures probably covers a lot more than waving good-bye. Hmm... :-p
I believe that their official national gesture is the deep bow. :eek:
 
"Well that beats mine hands down!"
Anyone care to shed any light on this one? I never was quite sure what it meant.
 
matthyaouw said:
"Well that beats mine hands down!"
Anyone care to shed any light on this one? I never was quite sure what it meant.
Don't know; maybe a poker reference? :confused:
 
lol, that actually sounds right.

What would you call something like "whale?"

Cetus is Latin and is used in biological names to mean "whale"; its original meaning is "large sea animal," but now in English whale has been converted to a dead metaphor to describe again, a large thing.
 
"You are a dead ringer of your father"

Dead ringer, as far as I know, was suppose to be something they did to corpses. Back in the day they didnt have very good methods of declaring someone dead. Sometimes they were just comatose. After they exhumed some coffins they found out that some people where buried alive cause of the scratch marks from inside the coffin. So they tied a string to the end of a bell to inside the coffin so they could pull the string for help. A graves man would sit and wait a few days. When the bell rang they would call it a dead ringer. Now how on Earth did this evolve to insinuate the above phrase I have not a clue.

Also I've heard that the clawing from inside the coffins also had something to do with vampire myths. I've also heard that this phrase has nothing to do with the above. Still nobody is exactly sure.

ahh, found this one:

Origin : The definition of ringer, from which this phrase comes, is "substituted racehorse."
Unscrupulous racehorse owners have a fast horse and a slow horse that are nearly identical in appearance. They run the slow horse until the betting odds reached the desired level, then they substitute the ringer, who can run much faster. Dead in this case means abrupt or exact, like in dead stop, or dead shot.

This one makes more sense.
 
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matthyaouw said:
"Well that beats mine hands down!"
Anyone care to shed any light on this one? I never was quite sure what it meant.


The expression comes from horse racing. A jockey, certain that he's about to win and wanting to "stick it" to his opponents, might relax his grip on the reins & cross the finish line "hands down."
 
I've always been kind of perplexed by the phrase "pi eyed".

I can't imagine what it would take for a person to contort their eye into the shape of the 'pi' character. Are they referring to the expression on a person's face the first time they take the natural log of a negative number on a calculator capable of handling complex numbers?
 
Hi, it's me the anal Grammar Cop again. :smile:

I've only read the first few posts in this thread, but in them I haven't seen a single metaphor! What you blokes are talking about here are dead idioms.
 
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You think you can just walk in on some poor, unsuspecting thread and just declare yourself to be the thread-killer, Tom?

Not unless you start employing dirty Super Mentor tricks..:wink:
 
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Tom Mattson said:
Hi, it's me the anal Grammar Cop again. :smile:

I've only read the first few posts in this thread, but in them I haven't seen a single metaphor! What you blokes are talking about here are dead idioms.

You are a loose cannon. :biggrin:
 
Ivan Seeking said:
You are a loose cannon. :biggrin:

Is that a dead metaphor? :smile:
 
Tom Mattson said:
Is that a dead metaphor? :smile:


Just killing two birds with one stone.