Break a leg
How does telling someone to sustain serious injuries imply you want them to succeed?
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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“Run like you’ve never ran before” suggests that you’d probably suck at running.
"Break a leg" (or "Hals und Beinbruch" in German, which is "Neck and leg fracture").
I don't even know what the logic could be. Is it supposed to be some sort of reverse psychology?
This is a theatre term as “Good luck” is supposed to bring bad luck. Therefore, you wish someone the worst luck possible in order to bring them good luck.
As happy as Larry.
Now... who is Larry, why is he happy, how happy, like a little bit or ecstatic?
Be like Larry.
Head over heels.
So... Standing?
I've read that it used to be "heels over head" as in upside-down, but then somehow the words got switched around (I found this page that claims the same thing: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/head-over-heels.html ).
No I think it refers to the motion of the head going over the heels. Not being positioned in a static frame over the heels.
Whenever my dad is being lazy or doing something too slowly, my mom says he's "dicking the dog". Whatever that means.
🤨
"You get what you pay for" - the words of a simpleton (or lying salesperson).
Yeah definitely useful when managing expectations around buying cheap shit but quality generally peaks or plateaus in the middle of the cost range.
I had to explain that "you get what you pay for" to a disgruntled (and later banned from my store) customer years ago.
At the time I was selling eyewear for Red Eyewear Giant (now owned by Blue Eye-care Giant™) and a guy orders the absolute cheapest product for his quite strong prescription. The RX was roughly a -7 on each eye, not huge but definitely significantly thicker than average. The gentleman wanted LARGE eyewear. The man did not want to spend much.
I offered a quote for the ideal product for his vision, which is a 1.7 index lens with scratch resistant non-glare and a hydrophobic coating (well get to why thats important). The man declines and decides he wants the absolute bare minimum, cool, cr-39 plastic lenses, uncoated. No amount of education on the products would change his mind, I chalked it up to a budget thing, explained the downsides of his choice (to absolve myself of liability for the issues I knew he'd have) and allowed the oirchase to go through with confirmation he understood the issues.
Now, what we've just done here is gone from a very lightweight, low thermal mass product that repels water, to a HEAVY, High mass product with absolutely no water repellant properties. This is in Houston, TX - a literal swamp, and the Air conditioning capital of the US.
Man enters grocery store, man buys groceries, man leaves grocery store, man's glasses immediately are coated in a thick fog which is dense enough that evaporation does not occur quickly (or at all honestly with that humidity) and they need to be wiped up.
That man screamed at me about how I ripped him off for over an hour.
Now, I'm not telling this story to say you're wrong, I think this might be an "exception that proves the rule" situation. But yes, you get what you pay for, and no, it's not always said by scummy salespeople, sometimes we just want you to have the right product the first time.
We all have experience with buying a premium product and thinking “wow, that’s nice” just like we’ve all had the experience where we bought the cheapest option and though “this is pretty good”.
The rule is as follows: “it depends”.
It’s just that our monkey brains don’t like those kinds of generalization.
"Quitting cold turkey" - I never actually thought about this one, but apparently it's directly related to addiction (which seems kind of obvious now that I do think about it). When you quit an addiction abruptly, you sometimes get that cold goosebump skin like a cold turkey.
Goosebumps like from a goose? Why isn't it called 'going cold goose' then?
I don't know, but it just doesn't roll off the tongue the way "cold turkey" does.
Hoisted by my own petard (to be foiled by your own plan), is a nice flowery one, although it actually makes sense. The bee's knees (for something excellent) is a good one that makes no sense. Wet behind the ears (inexperienced) is another cool one.
"Hoisted by your own petard" is from Hamlet. Equivalent to "It blew up in your own face" but with more of a cause of hippocracy
The french used to use an explosive device called a "petard" (old french for a fart), that was used to breach doors. However these would sometimes blow back and kill the user rather than breach the door. This was the original intention for the Shakespearian phrase. One was Hoisted (old verb* not used anymore but essentially blown off their feet) by their own Petard (or door breaching bomb).
More information is here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_with_his_own_petard
*Unrelated to hoist as in to lift, despite similarities
Is 'Wet behind the ears' a comparison to a newborn baby?
It is indeed
“The dogs bollocks” is another, same as bees knees.
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