Idioms are a quick way to get across something you want to say without needing to spend extra syllables to say it. Unfortunately, we don't give these sayings as much thought as we probably should. Sometimes they'll end up being complete nonsense, unfit for the situation we're in. Other times their meanings are outdated, referencing a time when cheaters definitely didn't prosper.
One look around the globe and, yeah, no, that's not the case anymore. Some of these common expressions are total BS.
Reddit user, u/bewildered_forks, wanted to hear what we should avoid saying when they asked:
What common sayings are total BS?
Let's Get This Silly One Out Of The Way
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Money don't buy you happiness.
Neither does poverty mate!
I mean, the only reasons I've been unhappy or stressed lately is because of a lack of money. I'd be very happy and carefree if I had a lot of money
How About, "Happy Both Of You?"
"Happy wife, happy life."
The fact is, every relationship will have disagreements and arguments. You're going to upset each other sometimes and that's good and healthy, so long as it's within reasonable limits. You need to be prepared to argue back against your spouse even if it might upset them.
Too much conflict-avoidance or prevarication will result in one spouse getting bossed around and secretly resenting it while the other does whatever they want. It can also lead to a loss of mutual respect.
Maybe Pay Them More?
Our essential or frontline workers are heroes.
(Yet no combat pay. Just a cute sign in front of a building)
Perfectionism Sucks
Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
This can be true, but the inference that 'doing anything poorly is not worth doing at all' is complete baloney. I prefer 'anything worth doing is worth doing poorly'. If it's best to work out for 30 minutes but I only have a few minutes, its better to do a few minutes than none. If it's best to drink 8 glasses of water a day, it's still better to drink 3 or even 1 rather than none.
Perfectionism sucks, and it's hard to get around.
Get On That Search
"Don't look for love. Let love find you."
raspberry
B-tch please. If I have to sh-t the toilet doesn't come to me. I have to go to the toilet.
You Don't Always Have To Listen
"Good things come to those that wait"
Bullsh-t! You have to grab the bull by the horns I say!
This one is true though it's just not universal. There are times when it's better to be patient and times when it's better to actively pursue goals.
If you work a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life.
Turning your passion into a career often means you just lose that passion
Know Where To Draw The Line
"kids will be kids" in regards to any problems related to kids.
"Boys will be boys" definitely applies more to me and my friends hitting each other with empty soda bottles shirtless, than it does to someone harassing or harming someone else. Dumb-ss versus just an a-- kind of distinction
No One To Come Get You And Calm You Down
"Slept like a baby."
Pissed the bed twice and woke up screaming.
A Small Tweak To Your Dreams
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"Just follow your dreams"....I feel like people hear this and use it as an excuse to do whatever they want and expect things to happen.
It should really be, "Follow what you're passionate about but set realistic goals and expectations."
And Sometimes, They Never Come Back
That someday that someone who left you will realise your worth and regret it
People tend to say this a lot if a friend is going through a break up or something similar. Or some people will even try to "make" someone regret leaving them or make them "realise what they lost" being bitter and trying to show off or throw shade on social media. While they MIGHT regret it some day you will likely never know this.
Sometimes you have to come to terms with the fact that they never will regret what they did or realise your worth. Or that they knew but they don't care and just wanted to take advantage of you. And the day you won't mind about if they will, you'll know that it doesn't even matter anymore if you find someone who really appreciates your worth or appreciate yourself and know your value doesn't decrease just because someone else can't see it or don't care.
And that everyone finds "the one" some day. Some people don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. Some people are perfectly fine and happy with themselves
Yet Still, It Happened. You Can Get Angry About It Happening.
"Everything happens for a reason" Or "God did this for a reason"
Anything along those lines
Not Everyone Knows Everything At Every Time
'That's common sense.'
Yeah, maybe to you, but I've never been told [insert x fact here] before.
(Sometimes this saying is used to give weight to someone's opinion, under the guise of being a well-known fact.)
This Is Definitely One Of Those, "We Learn From Hindsight," Ones
Hard work never killed anyone.
Hundreds of people die from hard work (i.e. heart attack shoveling snow, electrocution from trying to fix something, etc)
Don't Do It Wrong. Figure It Out Until You Get It Right.
"If you don't succeed the first time, try try again".
I had a fourth grade teacher that was COMPLETELY against this saying. Her reasoning? What if you're doing it wrong? Then you'll just continue to do it wrong until you give up out of frustration. So, she preferred to say "Keep trying different ways until you get it right".
Seems Like The Very Opposite Of This Happens Way More
Cheaters never prosper.
too many people prosper because they cheat
Have Those Compliments Locked And Loaded
"Flattery will get you nowhere!"
The opposite is more true in my experience
Absolutely. You can get a lot using flattery.
Good Luck Being On The Phone For 2 Hours
Cancel anytime
Someone has a gym membership!
A Quick Look On The Internet Reveals: No. No We're Not.
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We're all in this together
... during these unprecedented times!
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It’s weird how much stuff we let slide when we’re kids. Even if you look at the TV shows we watched back then, we had such a high threshold for the bizarre (early 2000’s Nickelodeon, anyone?). So it’s no surprise that some of us straight-up didn’t react when we saw weird crap in person.
Here are a few wild examples of seemingly harmless things we saw as kids that would be horrifying to see now. Brace yourself, this one gets crazy.
Kids and water aren’t a great mix sometimes. It can get real gross, real quick.
Not worth the tranquility.
I've always loved the tranquil feeling of being under water. When I was a kid I would just hold my breath and float around. Sometimes adults would think I was drowning and run up and scoop me out. I don't remember this (it was when I was pretty young) but my parents have told me about it
I used to think it was a funny story... people thinking I was drowning when I was just trying to relax
....until I watched a video explaining child drownings and yeah, the way I acted in water looked exactly like a drowned kid.
I don't think it's funny anymore.
Uhhhhhh.....ew?
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Flood water. It was fun and games for the kids, and we even splashed around in it, much to the horror of our parents (who immediately scrubbed us down). We didn't understand then, but now, oh wow...sewer, insects, rats, parasites, etc.
That’s actually hilarious.
My friend and I were walking along the road in about thigh high flood waters. A small boat with two men comes up to us. We were about 9 years old and I think they were National Guard. Anyway, one of the men asks if we remembered exactly where the manholes in the road were. We answered no. He told us that all of the covers had most likely been washed away in the flood but not to worry because it would probably only take them a few days to find our bodies if we were sucked down one of the holes by currents they produced. He spoke in a matter of fact tone and then left.
As an adult, I have zero doubt those two men had a good laugh as they looked back and watched us nope out of that water like two roadrunners in a cartoon.
Edit: It was Fish and Game Wardens. The NG didn't come until later.
Not to mention the crazy injuries that kids somehow are constantly surrounded by.
Had a jogger get hit by a car outside my house once when I was about eight or nine. My nephew came running inside yelling at my parents and my sister to call the ambulance because he was bleeding pretty badly.
I could even see him from our playrooms window and I wondered what he was doing lying on the grass. Turns out he was bleeding out pretty badly, deliriously yelling at my parents when they tried to help.
Eventually, an ambulance came and picked him up, but my parents always told me he made it out okay. The day after, in the spot he was found someone had put a lily in the grass in a vase.
It took me longer than I care to admit to figure out he died from the hit and run.
How sharp were they, though?
A kid f*cking sharpened his fingers with an automatic pencil sharpener at grade 2. Everyone didn't know what was going on until the teacher started freaking out.
I just remembered I tried to stick my finger into electric pencil sharpeners as a kid and disliked how my fingers were too big to fit in it. What the hell was I thinking?
Rock climbing can definitely be dangerous.
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We did climbing in PE (sixth to eight grade). Like rock climbing and we had to do our own harness and stuff. PE teacher (supposedly) checked it after we were done to make sure it was done right. One day my neighbor broke an arm and leg because she wasn't properly strapped and fell.
This was at an international American school in Egypt around year 2000, for all those wondering what type of school does rock climbing.
Kids are, in fact, made of elastic.
We used to jump of our roof. First time hurt a little, but after a few times you learnt how to land.
Did it regularly and would try various items as 'parachutes' to see if it slows you down any.
I look at that height now and wonder how the hell we never broke anything - kids bones are more elastic I guess.
It’s amazing what adults can get away with right under kids’ noses.
A casual hit-and-run.
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My babysitter was running late to take me to piano lessons and rear ended an old man at a stoplight. She told me that he must not have noticed because he didn't get out of his car. I thought nothing of it, and she drove away and took me to my piano lesson.
I forgot about it, and it didn't click until I remembered the incident years later that I had been unknowingly involved in a hit and run.
Big yikes.
Not so much something I saw - but when I was 5 or 6 I was at a family wedding, and there was this really friendly adult guy (who I didn't know) who told me he was really worried about his nice new car in the parking lot and how he wanted to check on the car but didn't want to leave the wedding.
He asked if I could go check on it and he would pay me $5 just to go see if his car was "okay" being that age $5 was a crazy amount of money so I couldn't believe my luck.
On the way to the parking lot, my mom intercepted me and was absolutely horrified, I remember not understanding why, like trying to tell her no she had it wrong he was nice and paying me! And as an adult now I'm like that's so messed up and I wonder how close a call that could have been.
Go grandma!
Until the age of 12 my grandma had custody of me. I used to sleep with her and she slept with a baseball bat next to her bed. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized she did it dads friends wouldn't be able to do anything to me.
Dad was a drug addict and drunk and when he was out of prison he had all kinds of people in and out of the house. You would never know what would be missing the next day - often my Nintendo :(
She did everything she could to protect me from God knows who/what and I had zero clue!
Edit: Damn this blew up while I was sleeping!! Thank you so much to everyone for the support :)
Im adding extra details to help understand the situation.
My grandmother was born in 1914, had a third grade education and was a housewife her entire life. She was already 71 when I was born! My grandpa died when I was 4 and it was just her and I. We lived in a tiny 2 bedroom house in a terrible neighborhood. It was paid off and that's all she could afford. She lived off of the social security death benefits from my grandpa and food banks. She couldn't just "leave" and go anywhere else.
Also, for those suggesting she should have called the cops - cops don't do anything if you say "I'm scared these guys will do something bad" cops have to wait till something bad happens.
She did her very best and raised my right! Now my father is back in prison (shocker) and is pissed at me for not letting the past be in the past and welcoming him with open arms. Meanwhile I'm a 2x college graduate with a great job, my own house and recently married! She definitely did something right. Unfortunately she died when I was 12. Id give anything to be able to tell her how grateful I am to her for doing everything right.
We see some scary stuff as kids. No wonder most of us are so messed up years later. Often these things don’t even register as something terrible- a lot of times, the things we witnessed were just a part of life.
The best we can do is to take our trauma, and learn from it, so we don’t pass it down to our own children. Because kids don’t deserve it- they deserve to have happy childhoods and not think about the horrors of the world.