Mine is tow the line rather than toe the line.
I imagine someone as a tugboat–towing the line of what is expected. I like that imagery better than keeping a foot on some fucking line. Plus using toe as a verb is dumb.
What are yours?
The other day I heard someone say “fuck around and find out” to mean “experiment to discover the correct path” and was really amused by that concept.
“Work cut out for you”
I always thought I meant that the job was made easier. Like in carpentry, if someone makes your cuts for you, half the job is done!
I mean it kind of does. The whole point is that it’s really easy to “see” the work because it’s such a giant mess
more of a misheard lyrics, but the song “The Freshmen” by the Verve Pipe hits a bit different if you thought they were singing:
For the life of me, I cannot remember What made us think that we were wise and we’d never compromise For the life of me, I cannot believe We’d ever die for these sins, we were merely flesh then
Mine is FTFY as fuck that fuck you.
I can’t help but read FTW as “Fuck the what” at first most times I see it. It just sounds so silly.
Because of a movie (I don’t remember the name, I don’t remember the plot), I thought it meant Fuck The World
Also a number of punk songs titled FTW. The Dwarves come to mind.
SMH = so much hate
I forgot about FTFY. I don’t know if I’ve seen it on lemmy
For the longest time, in my online vocabulary, POC meant “piece of crap”. And then a few years back I started seeing posts and articles where this and that person was referred to as a POC, and it took me a while of thinking “that’s a bit harsh, though?”, until I realized that my three decades old IRC lingo had to be updated.
I can live without my original definition, as POS serves the same purpose. Plus, my earlier use had no connection to skin tone, but using it as “Piece of Crap” today gives some racist undertones that I don’t want to be associated with.
POS=Point Of Sale…
I am convinced most retail workers refer to the system by sharing my interpretation of POS…
Yeah, I can’t imagine how the people who named it POS would do it unironically!
It’s so funny whenever I hear that acronym used professionally.
“Oh yeah? you’re pretty psyched about your new enterprise grade POS system? Sounds awesome…”
Sure, it means point of sale, but it only means that in this one context…
When I was a kid I thought the expression, the coast is clear, was actually, the ghost is clear, which makes sense that the ghost would be transparent but had nothing to do with a situation being safe enough to proceed with whatever you were doing. But I’m originally from Texas, where we have tons of idioms and colloquialisms that don’t make sense, so I just went with it.
For the traditional toe the line imagery, it helps to imagine a very rebellious kid that you have firmly told to absolutely not cross some line under any circumstances.
Imagine the kid looking you dead in the eye and smirking, as they stretch out their big toe and put it all over the line while barely not crossing it.
This captures the aspect that you don’t have to follow the spirit of the rules or believe in them in any way, you simply have to follow the letter of the instruction to be “toeing the line”. There is an inherent malicious coloring to the term that is important, where people that only toe the line are bad people.
edit: It needs to imply that you’re searching for ways to break a rule and get away with it on a technicality.
edit2: This got me curious enough to google the origin of the term, and it actually has a wikipedia article, amusingly. Apparently it has a military origin, and the article makes no mention of the negative connotations I mentioned. This makes me think my personal interpretation is actually incorrect, and I now wonder why I picked up on it. In the US, toeing the line does have a subtle negative connotation to it, and people that do it are looked down on somewhat.
This is vastly different than my understanding of the phrase. I understand it to mean something similar to “fall in line”. As in conform to some standard. I think it was supposed to have originated in the military where they would have a literal piece of tape in the ground at the foot of your bunk. When a drill sergeant or officer would come through you were expected to “toe the line”. Meaning stand at attention with your toes exactly touching the line.
Yeah, I just made another edit to my original comment. lol
Eh I’m in the US and wouldn’t say it’s a negative connotation so much as firm or strict one. More neutral than positive or negative. That said…it’s also slightly contextual though.
Regular context of guiding a kid or a team that’s been in trouble for something(“we better toe the line going forward”), it’s more neutral. But you can use it slightly derisively for someone that’s a stickler or brown noser, (“Don’t do anything cheeky around Dan, he really toes the line and will go tattle to the manager.”)
Anyways, just throwing my two cents to the wind.
I honestly like “milk toast” over milquetoast.
I always thought of it being so plain or bland having it made sense. Rather than a reference to a 1920s comic character.
Also, it doesn’t really fit but a coworker uses the phrase
“we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it”
This is more of a fix of two phrases which is we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and don’t burn your bridges.
I love mixing idioms, that one in particular is fun to use.
I’m also a fan of “throw caution to the wolves”.
Fun fact! The blending of idioms is called a malaphor! They’re a lot more common than you’d expect and I deliberately use them because I think they’re more fun.
“we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it”
When used in a fitting situation, that’s one I’ve always really liked.
My previous boss used to say “We’ll blow that bridge when we get there”
When I was young, I thought it was “Make ends meat”. Like poor cuts of meat, because you have no money.
Instead of having money left over by the time you get paid again.
Oh wow!.. Me too, until just now.
I like my wife’s:
Crap shoot. She thought back in the day it meant a literal tube of shit. (crap chute - always bad)
Now we say crap chute if things are likely to be bad. Instead of ‘could go either way’
Lord of War
I’ve heard others use “lucked out” as meaning both lucky and unlucky, but my original thought was that it was used when luck clearly wasn’t a factor. So if you intended to play the lotto and you didn’t win because you never bought a ticket I would’ve said you “lucked out”.
“Aged like fine milk”
Its supposed to be about wine and how it improves with time. However, especially when discussing old media, I like my version as it can mean its spoiled or turn to cheese, interprite as needed
Example,
The movie “Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist” has aged like fine milk.
Is the movie bad for its dated crappy matrix references or is it peak early 2000s cheese. Vote now on your phones.
The Matrix references are dated but not the Lion King references. Or the 1970’s movie it ripped off.
Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist is pure genius. Yes it’s dated for a low budget comedy and for its references. That only adds to its charm.
Now accept Steve Oedekerk as your Lord and Saviour or fight me. ;)
[high-pitched kung-fu noises] My face to your fist style, howda like it?
Pay no attention to Wimp Lo, we purposely trained him wrong… as a joke.
If you age that milk into cheese then yeah. 🤌
