I said try. Nobody is going to blame you...
Reddit user "RedditCredits" asked:
"What sayings have a second part that everybody ignores?"
... so, like, does anybody else notice how the meaning is often changed by the rest of the phrase?
Jack
Tea Shade GIFGiphy"Like, 'Jack of all trades, master of none...' "
"There's more to that phrase. The rest goes "is often times better than a master of one.' " - redditcredits
"This one is especially curious case, because the original phrase started not even as a saying, just a description of a person. As in 'John is a real Jack of all trades' (i.e. John can do many things)."
"Then someone decided to append with their personal judgement that specializing is better - basically being shady by saying if he's good at lots of things then he can't be GREAT at anything."
"So we got 'Jack of all trades, master of none' "
"And then someone else added their personal judgment that being well-rounded is better so we got 'Jack of all trades, master of none, if often times better than a master of one.' "
"Soon, it will be: 'Jack of all trades, master of none, better than master of one, but not really, but yes really, but not if you think about it, but especially if you think about it...' " - suvlub
Mediocrity
The Incredibles Teacher Life GIFGiphy" 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...'
" The second part: 'That mediocrity can pay to greatness.' "
"That last clause really drives home a slightly different point than we might be used to." - ZombieSquirrel
"So basically that quote is a roast? Damn." - justwalking_683
"Didnt know about this second part, definitely changes how I look at the quote. Thanks for sharing." - SmilingWatermelon
Great Minds
Emily Blunt Love GIF by The Animal Crackers MovieGiphy"Great minds think alike - but simple minds seldom differ" - DGDadbod
"What's the point of this phrase? It's set up as a differentiation between great and simple minds, but ends up saying they're the exact same." - 00PT
"It's saying that consensus isn't a guarantee that your idea is a good one."
"The first half 'great minds think alike' is usually used to suggest that consensus means your idea is good."
"For instance, I believe we should get ice cream and so does my friend, we're thinking alike, great minds think alike, thus we have great minds and getting ice cream is a good idea."
"However the second half indicates that consensus is meaningless if the people involved are stupid."
"For instance I'm drunk and think we should go try to fight that cop, and my buddy is drunk and thinks we should go try to fight that cop, we have consensus, but we're both simple drunk idiots, so that consensus doesn't matter. Still a bad idea." - finance_n_fitness
The Love Before The Fury
Angry Weight Loss GIF by BounceGiphy" 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' "
"William Congreve a 17th century playwright had this become his most famous quote. However, the actual line from his 1697 play, The Mourning Bride, goes:"
" 'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.' " - SlapDaBacon
"It's all about the 'love to hatred turned' part."
"The way I interpret it is if if you wrong a stranger they'll be pissed off, but not dramatically. If you wrong somebody you're close to, who loves you, the anger can be much greater because of the betrayal." - pineapplespy
"If you betray a woman who loves you, she can possess anger more powerful than any found in heaven or hell. She had to love you first."
"It was never meant to be about the girl you only went on one date with." - shastaxc
Apples
Throwing Episode 2 GIF by The X-FilesGiphy"A lot of people say 'there's a (few) bad apple(s)' but they forget that they 'spoil the whole bunch.' "
"I've heard it used more and more to defend against regulation, particularly in the financial and law enforcement sectors." - GundamMaker
"This."
"When a cop is caught doing something atrocious, they always say 'he was just one bad apple.' But the point is that when the police force tolerates those bad apples and hides their misdeeds, it corrupts the whole force."
"The bad apple spoils the bunch and needs to be removed proactively!" - poppop_n_the_attic
"This is the one that gets used the most without the second half and it drastically changes the meaning." - AltharaD
"To be clear, this is how apples really work. When an apple goes bad, it releases a gas that makes other nearby apples also go bad."
"So literally if you have a bunch of apples and one of them goes bad, it will taint all the others if it's not caught and removed immediately. If it's allowed to stay, the whole bunch is ruined and dangerous."
"That's what the saying is meant to convey." - Oudeis16
Money = Evil?
Dave Chappelle Reaction GIFGiphy"People usually think it's money itself that's evil, so you'll commonly hear 'Money is the root of all evil.' "
"But the actual phrase is saying that it is the love of money that's the root of all evil." - PuzzledInside123
"The context around the quote, from 1 Timothy:"
" 'But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.' "
" 'For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.' " - jalabi99
"Money itself isn't good or evil; it's just an inanimate object. But love of money -- i.e., a person obsessed with money… well, I hope that's obvious." - brndm
Redditors Recount The Wedding Objections They Witnessed | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Weddings are supposed to be all about love and celebration, right? But let's be honest, weddings are stressful. According to a recent Zola survey of 500 enga...Carpe Diem
Giphy" 'Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero' "
"Translation: 'Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.' "
"People generally take it as meaning live for the moment, where as the quote was to inspire the taking of every opportunity to work hard to ensure your future is stable, so not living for the moment, but planning for the future" - cpsutcliffe
"The translation from Latin is closer to 'pluck' the day (as in pick fruit while it is ripe.) Basically, stop and smell the roses while you can because the future isn't guaranteed no matter how hard you work today." - EducatedDeath
About Hipocrisy
" 'Judge not that you be not judged.' "
"Everyone takes this to mean that you should never, ever, under any circumstances, judge someone. So they ignore atrocious behavior like 'Yes that other person could be cheating on their spouse, but we can't judge. Not our place.' "
"The second half of the verse says, 'for by what standard you judge, you will be judged.' "
"The entire warning is about hypocrisy. In another words, don't judge your neighbor for being an adulterer if you happen to have a side piece of your own."
"If you judge your neighbor for something then be ready to be judged by that same standard." - agreeingstorm9
A Little Knowledge
Think About It Reaction GIF by IdentityGiphy" 'A little learning is a dangerous thing' "
"It's the first line of a poem by Alexander Pope. The rest of the first stanza is: "
" 'Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring' "
" 'There shallow draughts intoxicated the brain' "
" 'And drinking largely sobers us again.' "
"The poem is criticizing superficial knowledge (reddits speciality...) Not actual education. Btw the Pierian spring is from mythology and source of knowledge." - ikonoqlast
Opium's Not Necessarily Always Bad, Though...
Rise Up Hbo GIF by Vice Principals Giphy" 'Religion is the opiate of the masses' "
"The full text is more like: 'Religion is the opium of the people. It is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of our soulless conditions.' "
"Today, opium is regarded as a stupefying narcotic, so most people interpret it as 'religion makes people dumb,' but that's not what Marx meant."
"In his day, opium was the only real pain-killer there was. In other words, religion was the thing that helped oppressed people tolerate their oppression."
"Marx meant as a criticism of religion, since it forestalled what he felt was a necessary overthrow of their oppressors."
"His issue was that he felt religion allowed people to be complacent and accepting of oppression, not that it made people unintelligent." - jemenake
Human Mistakes
Starz Professor GIF by Power Book II: GhostGiphy"In Latin: 'Erare humanum est,' which means: 'to make mistakes is to be human.'
"But the second part of the phrase is 'Perceverum Diabolitas,' which roughly translates to 'to continue making them is devilish' everyone forgets the second part!"
"I hear a version of it in English that ends with 'to forgive is divine' but it dismisses any accountability. The original phrase does not, it's all about the accountability of not making that 'mistake' again." - Antorac
Weave A Better Web
s reactions web GIFGiphy" 'Oh what a tangled web we weave...' is a phrase I hear often. I sometimes hear it with the second half of the line: 'When first we practice to deceive' "
"But the next part is so often omitted that most people don't understand the whole meaning:"
" 'But how vastly we've improved our style / When we've practiced for a while.' "
"Yeah, it's basically saying we get better at lying with practice." - bp_516
Buzzkill
Nbc Brooklyn 99 GIF by Brooklyn Nine-NineGiphy" 'Eat, drink, and be merry' "
"The rest of the sentence is: 'for tomorrow we die.' which is a major buzzkill, not a warm holiday greeting." - miraakthecasbah
Bliss
Sad Face GIFGiphy"People are familiar with the expression, 'Ignorance is bliss.' However, the full sentence is:"
" 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.' "
"In other words, it's not that it's good to be uneducated; rather, there's not always a benefit in knowing certain disturbing pieces of information."
"From the 1742 poem 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,' by Thomas Gray." - ChannelingWhiteLight
Toxic Honey
toxic britney spears GIFGiphy" 'Revenge is sweet' "
"It comes from this:"
" 'Revenge is sweet, a toxic honey that corrodes the soul.' - Sun Tzu. It's not, at all, supposed to celebrate revenge." - Al-Alecto
Does knowing the rest of these phrases change anything about how you've understood them? Sound off.
These can get super confusing. I would say to not think too hard about it, but this is Reddit after all. Bubbrub13 asked:
What's a popular saying you don't really understand?
These next few sayings really don’t make sense when it comes to what they actually mean.
The explanation makes a lot more sense.
“When someone has a "laundry list" of things to do. With the implication that there is a lot to do.
Who has ever made a list of their laundry?”
“The idiom comes from the advent of laundry services. Basically, before people had washing machines in their houses, you'd ship your clothes off to the laundry service to have them washed and folded.
You'd include a list so that you knew what they gave them. Nowadays you still see laundry lists in fancy hotels!”
Sometimes the full saying gets shortened over the years.
clam GIFGiphy“Happy as a clam.
Why are clams happy?"
“The full phrase is ‘happy as a clam at high tide’. Because at low tide a person with a shovel can cause the clam to become soup."
You really need the whole phrase for it to make sense.
"The proof is in the pudding."
“It's a shortened version of the phrase.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Or in other words to know how good some things are, you have to try them.
(source- NPR)”
Hardcore, indeed.
"’The whole nine yards’. I know what it means, but don't grasp where the meaning originated. I have been told that it refers to making of a nice dress or a wedding dress, which would use the entire nine yards in a bolt of fabric. But that's just apocryphal. And does the term have any relation to the phrase ‘dressing to the nines?’”
“It's from World War 2. Specifically refers to the length of ammo chains on aircraft were 27 feet long. So if you fired all bullets at a target, you gave them the full 9 yards.
source- pretty sure I heard Dan Carlin mention it in Hardcore History”
So far, it seems like a lot of these come from way back when, during times where they made a lot more sense. But these next few are the real head scratchers.
I don’t get this one either.
Comforting 30 Rock GIFGiphy"’There, there.’
I understand it's said when consoling someone in pain, distraught or just plain sad. Letting them know you are there. What I don't understand is the use of the word ‘there’, twice.
I'd understand consoling with ‘I'm here, I'm here’.
I'd understand consoling with ‘it's going to be ok, it's going to be ok’.
But...there...said twice? What does it mean?”
This one means the opposite of what you think it does.
"’Got my work cut out for me.’
I've been told that this means that your task/job will be difficult. It sounds like it should mean that your work will be easier to do. I don't get it.”
“Yeah, the original meaning was from tailoring clothes, where the material would literally be cut out and prepared ahead of time, and then you have ‘your work cut out for you’.
So it means you have work ready to go and clearly you'll be busy and not just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen, but it doesn't necessarily imply that the work is especially hard.
But for most people having work in the backlog is arduous enough that it carries some implied difficulty, which then gets attached as a connotation to the saying.”
No worries.
"’I slept like a baby.’
It understand it is supposed to mean that you slept well, but almost very baby I have ever been around wakes up crying every couple hours.”
“It means you slept without worries as babies don't have to worry about anything. For us that translates to a better sleep because of less stress.”
I have been saying so many of these without even knowing where they came from.
Well that’s awkward.
Glove Penetration GIFGiphy“A friend is a phlebotomist (they're the ones who draw your blood when you get LA work done). She had a staff member who was not a native English speaker.
My friend was walking from her office to the waiting room when she overheard the staff member with a patient. My friend's eyes widened and she asked the staff member to come to her office after the client left. Here's their conversation.
F--Friend S--Staff Member
F: So I heard you chatting with your patient before the draw. What were you chatting about?
S: Well, I told him to have a seat. Then after he confirmed his name and blood work I told him I had to grab a new latex glove because one was torn, so I told him I'd be right with him.
F: Yes, but what did you say exactly?
S: Oh! No glove no love!
F: (trying desperately to contain a grin) And do you know what 'No glove no love means'?
S: Yess...
F: Well, what do YOU think it means?
My friend spent the next few minutes explaining that the phrase means 'no condom, no sex', to the absolute terror of her staff member.
S: But..but...I say that to EVERYBODY. OH MY GOD.
aaaaannnnd scene."
Very different from its actual meaning.
“‘Pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ is used to mean you should put the work in and get things done despite hardships, but originally it was used to describe an impossible task.
“That one bugs me the most, it literally means you cannot accomplish this alone, you need help from others and it has gotten co-opted to mean you just have to try harder.
Now granted the people saying this don't usually want those they are saying it to, to actually succeed.”
On accident or on purpose?
"’On accident’ as in ‘I did that thing on accident’
For my entire 50 years, it's always been ‘by accident’ but now all of a sudden I am hearing people say ‘on accident’ and it makes no sense grammatically at all.”
“Most likely formed based on analogy with the opposite adverbial 'on purpose'.”
Well I definitely learned a thing or two today. It’s interesting how we go about saying all of these phrases, without actually knowing what they mean.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and try to sleep like a baby.
New Places.
GiphyI moved to California from NYC and thought it was funny to call things chill. Now I really mean it. fmoss
I had the opposite experience, in the sense I'm from WA and lived in Texas for a bit and was made fun of for saying chill all the time lol. TheeTeo
The Aged.
"I'm too old for this crap..." kj_SmrtAlc
The crappy thing about this is eventually you get old enough that you have to stop saying it so that people won't notice how freaking old you are. Age discrimination is an actual thing. crcalabrese
"dawg"
I started say "dawg" as some dumb joke and now saying it to my manager... it's starting to be a problem. TheeTeo
I also used to say dawg ironically and then it became a habit. I knew it was bad when all of my friends told me I had to stop, and people started calling me dawg all the time. I am a few months dawg-sober. KindlyTooth588
Dynamite....
GiphyAfter watching Napoleon Dynamite, I would purposely mispronounce quesadilla to the point where I actually say it that way now. I just hope if I order one I won't say it that way. I could get some weird looks. spinchling
Stupid Fo.
Fo sho. bedfordhez
My buddy came up with "Sha fo" instead of "fo sho" like 10 years ago and we still say it. Stupid af. musselshirt67
Like That.
It be like that sometimes. The_Meme-Connoisseur
People don't think it be like it be, but it do. TheSoviet-Union
And sometimes like that it be. tr24shpanda7
Sprouts....
Cool beans. SamRavioli03
Hot rod made me say this. TheeTeo
I say that all the time, my girlfriend always looks at me like I'm nuts. redditpulledmebackin
OKAY?!
GiphyGirl. It has spread among my friends and colleagues, and even my sister's friends and colleagues. Man or woman, we all call each other girl now. WebbedFingers
Yass Queen!! zodberg
Or Doh!
OOF! HattieTheCat
I hate that this is part of my vocabulary now. It's like I've forgotten how to respond to people in conversations with actual insightful replies. Now there is only oof. TyNyeTheTransGuy
To be fair, that wasn't uncommon to say where I come from when I was a kid. Lots of Scandinavians moved to the Midwestern U.S., and with them came the terms "uff" and "uff da" (uff being pronounced like "oof"). Funnily enough, oof is used pretty close to exactly the same as uff or uff da, depending on the context.
So when you use "oof," you're not just with the times and the hip young lingo... You're multicultural. cATSup24
Scolding....
GiphySpilling Tea and all of its derivatives. It's really scary how fast the way other people speak weaves into your vocabulary. First ironically... then un-ironically. JohnWhoHasACat
I've got a friend who differentiates between serving tea, spilling tea, and throwing tea, the difference being how salty you are about the subject. starcrossedcherik
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