I was thinking about the phrase 'The pot calling the kettle black'. It comes from a time where cooking was done over open fires and cookware would become visibly ashy. (Fun fact: It first appears and was perhaps coined by Cervantes in Don Quixote!)

What are some other idioms that have lost their literal connection to time? What would be a good modern replacement?

FYI this can still happen on liquid propane stoves, so not totally lost to time.

Maybe "Kill two birds with one stone", because who hunts with stones anymore?

"Pulling my leg." Meaning you are making something up/joking at someones expense.

It does not have any real connection to the present. The idiom came about in the mid-19th century. There's two competing theories about how it came about. The prevailing theory is that pick pockets, particularly child pick pockets, would pull on people legs to distract their mark. The darker theory is that it was related to pulling someone's legs when they were hanged in order to finish the ordeal if they didn't die from the initial drop.

"Did you bring the (evening newspaper) with you?" I've used this in different countries, the newspaper referred to is one which historically was sold in the afternoon, not morning. And I ask it of anyone who comes to work late. Now, at least here, all the newspapers come out in the morning, so I just get confused stares.

Great example! That one is so ingrained that I never even realised it didn't make literal sense! Maybe a modern replacement could be something like 'You're hiding a camera'

As a software dev I'll offer 'Kill two bugs with one patch' as a replacement.

(to do something) "on your dime," i.e. at your expense - A reference to public coin operated phones, which for a long time cost 10c/a US "dime" coin per call.

Inflation by the late 70s had made the single dime call a thing of the past, but USD20c was still possible, and inflating phone fees in the 80s required increasing amounts of coinage. Public pay phones were decimated when mobile phones gained popularity and are virtually extinct today in the US.

"on your card" might be a more modern version, but cards are slowly disappearing with NFC phone payments.

That sounds like a great candidate for a modern replacement if I've ever heard one! What's something that you can only get at night these days? Seems like everything, especially information, is 24 hours now. Maybe someone more creative than me could chime in?

Hurried right over after dessert, then?

I don't know if its literal origin doesn't make sense to a modern person, but I think that most people still get the literal meaning of "pot calling the kettle black", that that is still understandable, so...

We still use "penny-wise and pound-foolish" in the US. We haven't used the pound since we seceded from the British Empire, and we just ended minting of the penny.

The saying apparently predates the US by about 200 years.

bugs

Until I looked it up I thought it was about the literal colour of the pot and the kettle. I even thought there might be racist undertones 😅. What's a good replacement for 'Pennywise and Pound foolish'? Maybe 'Steam saler, LootBox whaler'

Touché!

I think I remember seeing a PETA post years ago that suggested "feed two birds with one scone"

“Burning the midnight oil”

Good one! I would offer 'Draining the house battery' as a replacement but it doesn't really have a ring to. Maybe 'You've been living in low blue light mode'. No that's even worse! somebody help me here 😅.

My fav replacement for this one is “feed two birds with one scone”, I don’t remember where I heard it but it always makes me smile

(Don’t feed bread to birds tho lol)

I prefer stone two birds with the same joint.

"Have your cake and eat it too" doesn't really make sense. Cake is not rare or expensive enough that simply possessing it feels good. If you have cake, all you want is to eat it.

The italian version, "you want a full barrel and drunk wife" illustrates the same situation much more clearly.

I prefer "Get two birds stoned at once"

Dollars to donuts originated in an age when a dollar could buy a considerable quantity of donuts. Inflation has since reduced the literal interpretation of the expression to nearly even odds.

That’s because it’s backwards. Should be “eat your cake and have it too”

Edit: While that preserves the form and is recognizable as the common saying, it makes the meaning clearer if phrased as “Eat your cake and still have it”.

On a similar note: "in for a penny, in for a pound"

Also wanting to eat your cake and have it too is supposed to imply you're like a toddler having a tantrum because you're just coming to terms with the rules of object permanence: a person playing peekaboo or hide-and-seek can disappear and still come back, but if you eat your cake it will be ALL GONE!!!

Even flipped, it's still weird in English with "Having cake" meaning "Eating cake" in most contexts anyway.

You cannot have a cake in your possession and also eat that cake. Once you eat it, it is gone.

"Staying up past your bedtime" is about as close as I can think of, off the top of my head.

I've also heard "would step over a dollar to pick up a penny".

I was confused by this one too, but then I thought about it in the context of a wedding cake; you want to have it as a beautiful thing to show off to all of your guests, but you also want everyone to enjoy how good it tastes as a desert. You can't have both simultaneously, so you have to pick

In 2026 it's literally Donuts To Dollars.

I saw this as a screenshot somewhere today, I think it kind of fits the theme: https://www.threads.com/@beaukorylak/post/DYez23dDppv

I cannot possess cake without eating it

"break a leg"

No, please don't.

Better stated as “… and still have it”, come to think of it.

There’s a reason that is seen as greedy and foolish.

When I was a kid, I remember asking my mom about this phrase because it made no sense to me. Why in the world would one even want a cake if they weren’t going to eat it? What is the point?! (I have always been particularly fond of cake — eating it, that is — who cares if it’s pretty if it tastes good?)

"Picking up the phone" makes sense because you will probably pick it up to answer or dial. "Hanging up the phone" doesn't really happen so much anymore but we still do it all the time.

Don't put the cart before the horse.
Don't submit your post before you write it.

I'm only half joking when I say this could be the modern replacement. I've caught both myself and the S.O. using "no take only throw" in conversation, often about unreasonably demanding people.

Cap

In Portuguese the equivalent expression is timeless: "o sujo falando do mal lavado" (the dirty one talking about the badly washed).

Mouselemming thank goodness you're still here. I scrolled up and you disappeared for a second, I was so worried!

Doesn't that one come from the German idiom "Hals- und Beinbruch" (break your neck and legs) to wish someone good luck? Which in turns comes from a very butcherdly spoken jiddish phrase meaning (have success and be blessed).

This comment is about to be legen-

but arnt they still have relevance in many situations in modern times.

Just desserts is another one.

Don't remember where I heard it, but I thought the origin was related to actors and performers. It was a superstitious thing that if you wished someone good luck on stage you would jinx it so instead they did the opposite and wished for the worst. I could be very wrong!

I heard this one the other day: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." It's hard to modernize though because transportation has become so cheap. Almost everyone has access to a car or even aeroplane for a modest fee

Technically its not gone, just inside you.

"Avoiding things like the plague" because people did not actually seem to want to avoid the plague last time around.