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NaturallyMe's avatar

Do you sometimes wonder where some (obviously incorrect) sayings come from? Which ones get most on your nerves?

Asked by NaturallyMe (4937points) July 23rd, 2010

Things like: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”. If anything, love is THE reason to say you’re sorry!

Which ones do you wish would just stop existing?

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21 Answers

TexasDude's avatar

“No homo bro.”

NaturallyMe's avatar

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard i’ve never heard of that one before.

TexasDude's avatar

@NaturallyMe, I wouldn’t call it an incorrect saying, just a really obnoxious one. The new thing now is that when two “bros” hug or say “i love you” they follow up with a quick “no homo bro” to alleviate any innate fear of being gay.

It’s not a logically incorrect saying by any means, but I do wish it would just go away.

syz's avatar

“I could care less”. No, it’s “I couldn’t care less”. That misspeak means the opposite of the intent of the statement.

wilma's avatar

I have heard people say “a tough road to hoe”.
What? You don’t hoe a road, you hoe a row.
It’s “a tough row to hoe” as in row of beans or beets in a field.
The tough part is if there are a lot of weeds, or the sun is hot or you are hungover.

NaturallyMe's avatar

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard – that’s kind of funny (sort of, kind of)...but yes, i can see how it can be annoying. :)

NaturallyMe's avatar

@wilma – that’s like the “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” one. It’s supposed to be “you can’t eat your cake and have it too”. Somewhere along the way it got twisted around and now makes no sense, yet people still use it the wrong way.

MyNewtBoobs's avatar

@syz That one drives me crazy! A lot of authors say it too. I spent much of my childhood confused about the girls in The Babysitters Club because I couldn’t understand why they were acting the way they did if had so much room to care less.

jfos's avatar

There’s a saying that goes “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Okay. How about “Nobody should throw stones.” That’s crappy behavior. My policy is: “No stone throwing regardless of housing situation.” Don’t do it. There is one exception though. If you’re trapped in a glass house, and you have a stone, then throw it. What are you, an idiot? So maybe it’s “Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped in the house with a stone.” It’s a little longer, but yeah.

-Dmitri Martin

WillWorkForChocolate's avatar

@syz Yes! I hate that!

Fad sayings really get on my nerves. Like, “Don’t taze me bro” or whatever the hell that one was supposed to be.

Trillian's avatar

I frequently hear; “No rest for the weary”, and it makes me insane! The saying is; “No rest for the wicked”.
And yes, I’ve expounded at length about the cake scenario. Until today, I had no idea that it was turned around. I just maintained that you could not eat it unless you did have it, and that there would be no point in having it if you couldn’t eat it. So yes, I want to have my cake so that I can damn well eat it.
I could care less – yes, I hear it spoken incorrectly frequently.

NaturallyMe's avatar

@Trillian – oh…no rest for the weary kind of makes sense…but i’ve never used it and hardly ever hear it.

YARNLADY's avatar

When someone dies, they “give up the goat”. No – Give up the ghost

NaturallyMe's avatar

@YARNLADY – haha! I’ve never heard that mistake before. :)

Trillian's avatar

@YARNLADY Give up the goat. That’s hilarious.
“All right, hand over the goat and no one gets hurt!”

ETpro's avatar

Conservatives are fond of claiming, “The government is inefficient at everything it does. Just look at the US Postal Service compared to the private carriers.”

First, the USPS is not a government agency. It has been self funded by revenues it earns from its services, exactly like UPS and FedEx are, for over 30 years now. What money it does receive from the US Government is not a handout. It’s payment for the franking privileges (the right to send mailings for free) Congress and other government officials are given.

Second, the Post Office handles everything from individual letters to packages of nearly all sizes at far lower rates than all the free-enterprise guys do in most cases. You can make a case for FedEx if you cherry-pick just the right weight and delivery timing, but on just about every weight, package size and delivery timing the USPS is way less costly than the other carriers. On packages that fit their “If it fits it ships” boxes, their 2 to 3 day Flat Rate deal is a phenomenal bargain compared to FedEx, UPS and DHL.

And why this false argument annoys me is that the Con Men trot it out to support their belief that if we just cut taxes to next to nothing and “starved the beast” (beast being our federal government) this country would suddenly become more prosperous than anything the Earth has yet seen and all problems would right themselves overnight. That’s as ridiculous as claiming that a car can drive itself through busy rush-hour traffic in New York’s Times Square, but one with an expert driver at the wheel is sure to crash. All we need do to examine the results of starving the beast is look at Somalia. They have the Con Men’s dream of no government there, and it sure hasn’t produced my idea of a paradise on Earth.

augustlan's avatar

@ETpro Did you mean to post that here?

ETpro's avatar

@augustlan The OP asked for an incorrect saying that gets on my nerves. I guess that rant shows that one gets on my nerves. Apologies to all who found it off topic.

augustlan's avatar

OK, just checking. :)

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