Ain't no two ways about it

To be funny is why.

Quit horsing around. You're really putting the cart before the horse.

Edit: sorry, gotta go. I need to see a man about a horse.

I'm sure there's something there with e-scooters. Get off your segway max extreme and get down here. Don't look at the speed regulator of a free scooter. Hold onto your brakes? Idk I'm just spitballing here

That's very good.

I didn't mentioned it above, but found that very similar to it in Spanish where we say "El burro hablando de orejas al conejo" (the donkey talking about ears to the rabbit) which we shorten to "El burro hablando de orejas" (the donkey talking about ears)

According to legend, some people have what's called "deferred gratification", by which they drive pleasure out of knowing that they will get to eat the cake later.

I don't get it either. I think it's a myth.

No real reason, just something to talk about while we all wait around to die really 🤷. I agree with your sentiment - the stories and imagery behind old idioms actually make them more interesting, I dont think they'll be going anywhere soon!

RIP Timmy

I cannot possess cake because I'm not a demon. Yet.

But maybe you will someday in the future...

They don't need to have been used routinely, just knowledge of their use had to be common. In the same way that "shooting yourself in the foot" makes sense even to people who have never used a gun. It was enough to know what "hoist" and "petard" meant to piece together the intent of the phrase. Then once the phrase itself became common the specific knowledge was no longer necessary.

Applying wishes were horses to this could be dangerous.

Great examples! 'champing at the bit' also comes to mind. I think cars fill in pretty nicely as a horse substitute. 'Saddle up' has 'buckle up'. Hold your horses has 'Hit your brakes'. As for gift horses... 'Don't look a gift car under the hood?' Hmm doesn't quite work

I would like to subscribe to your history newsletter.

I assumed the idiom was from a time when all cookware was made of cast iron.

Blowing up or at least weakening a portion of a castle wall during a siege would be useful to the besiegers. Even a small petard could break into a building for nefarious purposes. And being a sapper is notoriously dangerous even now.

Of course Shakespeare could have used the name of a larger bomb, or "speared with his own sword" or something. But Shakespeare's audience would also have clocked the fact that pétard is a French pun from péter which makes it a fart joke. And he never missed a chance for a fart joke.

"Following the normal work routine"

Yup.

Like that one scene in The Two Towers when Legolas suddenly became unable to shoot his bow.

"One bad apple will spoil the whole barrel" desperately needs to be replaced because nobody has experience with storing apples in barrels so when Michael Jackson subverted it they took it unironically and now many people think it means the opposite.

I'm not techy but something about one line of bad code can jank the whole program?

I always thought of that idiom as the pot (something generally cast iron and not polished) calling the kettle (something that is polished and therefore reflective) black.

Being that the pot sees itself in the reflection, but calls the kettle that as a derogatory thing, unknowing of it's personal alignment.

Same with distillation, you get the heavies that you don't really want in your drink so you end the process. Ie the bitter end.

"A bad link breaks the chain" maybe. Or "one bug causes an infestation" for the idea that you can't just solve the initial problem once it gets bad, it spreads if not dealth with

I dunno. Yamiks still beats on horses... In both ways.

"Don't check the resale value of a gift car" maybe

Threshhold

from the time we spread threshes on the floor inside homes and a lip was needed to keep them spilling out.

Modern version?

Ohdear. Cause you yell something along that line when you hit it with your toe.

But I want it now!

Oh, man, when it comes to nautical idioms, I could go on all day. There are so many, and they've lost their literal connections so thoroughly, you probably don't even think of some of them as idioms. A few that occur to me immediately:

• taken aback (wind on the wrong side of the sails)
• give a wide berth (extra space for a vessel to maneuver)
• leeway (unwanted downwind slippage of the vessel when in motion)
• above board (on deck, the board being the section of the hull running fore and aft just above the water line)
• onboard (to load onto the deck of the ship)
• go by the board (to fall off of the ship into the water, passing the board on the way)
• hand over fist (two-handed motion to pull in sails, ropes, etc. as quickly as possible)
• high and dry (above the tide line)
• loose cannon (a gun insufficiently secured would cause havoc on a warship when fired, or as the ship rolled in waves)

Honestly, I'm not sure that I want modern equivalents, since many are so rich in imagery.

Yeah that one bugs me. I can feed multiple birds with one scone easily. I'm putting in too much effort here, but this recipe has the macronutrient mass of a single scone at 90g. The average crow weighs about 300-600g. I chose it because it's a common bird that would be interested in scone and that people like to feed, that's on the bigger end of birds people feed (outside waterfowl). One crow isn't eating nearly a third of its mass in one go, a sixth maybe. Songbirds aren't even getting close to that.

Killing two birds with one stone implies some skill or fortune. You wouldn't say it to describe picking up tomorrow's groceries with today's. Feeding two birds with one scone is only difficult or fortunate if those birds are geese, and even then I assume the only reason two managed to get their bills on that thing is because they're fighting over it.

Ohhh, that's where "dime you out" comes from.

fwiw I'm nearly 30 and I've never heard that phrase in my life. Maybe a regional thing?

Ted, is that you?

If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak.

Maybe if we just apply "you find one cockroach, there's a million in the walls" to the same problems like bent police and corrupt politicians...

That is my understanding, yes.

Chocolate-flavored frosting

Also, "to dial" a phone number.

From back when land line telephones had rotary dials.

https://youtu.be/vLFKdA5iEo4

Also scones are terrible for the health of birds as are all breads. It's frankly on point that peta would be dumb enough to make their animal friendly term equally as harmful to animals.

Always love idioms from other languages. Had a book called "Idioms Delight" that explored equivalents from several different cultures/languages.

Not quite updating, but in my house we say "like sweeping the yard" to indicate that something is pointless and wasting time.

"Boss has us doing obviously pointless busy work today"

"Yeah, next he'll be having us sweep the yard!"

Or derogatorily:

"I want you to go do that thing."

"Sure, you want me sweep the yard when I'm done?"

Ass over teakettle.

I don't think there is a modern equivalent idiom for taking a sloppy fall

Also today I was literally at the bitter end anchoring a boat with almost all of the available chain.

Ass over tit, I have heard.

Which I expect ass over teakettle is actually a polite euphemism for

No it's not a euphemism. It's literally walking down the stairs with a teapot and falling and ... Well

Entering single digits? Only makes sense for those with 24h time I guess

Ignite the midnight petroleum.

"Extra extra read all about it." Said because it was an extra leaflet to the daily newspaper published later in the day.

There's tons of replacements, they're not directly equivalent but equally snarky: "Hey part-timer" "Half day?" "Stop by for some coffee?"

"Loses dollars to chase cents" is the closest thing I've heard.

I'm canadian, so we use metric for that stuff but the expression is still imperial, probably because ounce and pound are a lot more fun to say