Phrases people use that you do not understand.

Such as "The Exception proves the Rule."
What the fuck is that?
Duckie

Neither version makes sense to me.....

:shrug:

Want me to explain? No? O.k., well I'm gonna anyway. Its a description of a sailing ship that can sail well going both "by" the wind, that is wind on one side (beam) or another, or going "large" with the wind coming from behind (stern) when a different arrangement of sail is required. Some ships sail better "by" the wind, some sail better going "large" or before the wind, and the best sail well both "by" and "large."

I already gave my 2 silly hearts away so I have none to give.
Someone give this smart person a heart!

If I am not mistaken a Canadian phrase, because when I say it, having lived in Seattle for almost 10years people wonder what the hell I am talking about.

I've heard it a lot while watching random British shows. :shrug:
Maybe google it? I'm curious about it too.
Duckie

I think it means that if Bob's your uncle- you are set and it's all good.

Thanks!

used the phrase in Mary Poppins.

...for really bad British accents in movies. Poor old Dick has been satirized so many times, all you have to do is start singing "It's a jolly 'ollydaaay wiv Maaaary," to get a roomful of Brits howling. I think that performance alone is a major reason why Dick van Dyke is so loved in the UK.

One etymology says that the 19th Century Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew to a senior Cabinet position. So the fact that "Bob" was his uncle smoothed the younger man's passage through the corridors of power. "Bob's your uncle," therefore, means the equivalent of "In like Flynn:" you're as sure of success as if your uncle Bob ran the business.

Like all very neat and convenient etymologies, this is probably total BS, but the meaning is still pretty clear.

The Australians use the phrase, too.

:rofl:


I believe it means you're all good/all set.

I first ran across the phrase "And Bob's your uncle" in Elizabeth Jane Howard's novel Getting It Right. I could guess the meaning from the context, and some years later I used the phrase in conversation with my brother, who nearly drove his SUV off the road laughing.

and "Fanny's your aunt" was the way I heard it growing up in Ireland.

Haven't a clue what it means, except I remember "Bob's your Uncle!" seemed to mean something like Job Done or Job well accomplished.

Mickey

and "Bush is a great leader" (or, substitute: "Thank God Gore wasn't president on 9-11")

...but sure. :hi:
Oh my gosh. You actually weren't mean in that post. Amazing!
Duckie

I might speak truth, or a differing opinion - but rarely is the intent to be mean.

I should have used the word Cranky instead of mean. I apologize.
Duckie

:grr:

hee hee - just kidding. :hugs:

:hi:

:rofl:

Curmudgeonly - that works. Cranky is good, too.

:thumbsup:

:rofl:

and I believe in God too

ha ha!

ad infinitum.

again :)

:hide:

:hug:

Your pal got it wrong.

But people say proves the rule all the time.
Duckie

but I've never heard it.

I love regional sayings.

The say it in that too. :evilgrin:
Duckie

I had forgotten about it.

Though that usage is now obsolete it endures in folk mottoes, and in labeling of alcoholic beverages. So the expression should be "The exception tests the rules".

Your friendly neighborhood language geek.

Exception to the rule just means something is unusual.

The exception that proves the rule means you did something differently than usual and it went wrong. Thereby the usual way (the rule) is proven to be valid.

What the hell does that mean?

...as hardly anyone knows how to be a friend anymore, but it's when you don't lie to someone just because you might hurt their feelings. It's being the friend you can always count on to tell you when you're being an idiot or when you have spinach in your teeth. :shrug: People don't want those kinds of friends anymore. They just want people to kiss their ass.
Duckie

My wife and inlaws use it all the time. I think it's some version of "Hell-bent for leather".

And I don't even understand THAT one.

"It might work in theory, but not in practice."

If it can't stand up to empirical observation then, strictly speaking, it ain't even a theory.

'Works in theory' is a pretty meaningless statement.

meant naturally.

Why are you so fucking lazy that you can't SAY naturally!? What the fuck!?
Duckie

the OLD meaning of "prove," which meant "test."

Therefore, it actually means "The exception that tests the rule."

I love people who know this stuff!
Duckie

the windy city?

It has nothing to do with it being windy there. This was from 100-130 years ago or so, when there was a big rivalry between the cities, and thus between their newspapers (before newspapers were ostensibly unbiased). The New York paper was using "windy" to refer to Chicago leaders/newspapermen/politicians (I can't remember the exact details) as "windbags".... in other words, full of shit and running at the mouth. I have no idea why it stuck, but it did, and now it's a phrase that people in Chicago use as well to describe their city. Why my nickname for New York (overrated dirty boring shit city) hasn't stuck is beyond me (guess which place I prefer).

Charles Anderson Dana came up with that particular appellation

or did you look it up?

I was just tryin' to impress the Oklahoma gal. :rofl: :hi:

:(

she's on the wrong side of the Red river anyway. :shrug:


just kidding
:rofl:

If nobody answers, I'm going to start a thread about this.

That saying gives me a horrible visual.

Anyway, is what you are saying in your post true? About windbags. I really want to know, because I use the term "windbag" a lot.

To me, it just does not make sense to take the "prove" as "test". What does it mean, then, if an exception tests the rule? The fact is that there is *always* an exception, and thus, no rules. But yet, we know very well that there are rules, and even when we also know very well that there are exceptions, we still believe that the rule is valid.

Don't we? Or am I just speaking for myself?

I've always been fond of the interpretation that an exception can indeed *prove* (as in, validate) a rule, because the mere fact of it being an exception, that is, anomolous, means that there is something else that is more common, or rule-like.

No? Yes?

:rofl:

think science class: a proof is a test of a theory.

talk to myself, that is.

But getting back to testing rules: what good is it to test a rule? I mean, when an exception is found, the rule isn't tossed out, is it? No; in fact, it's actually strengthened in some ways, because the fact that the exception (which by it's nature is a rare event, otherwise it wouldn't be an exception, it'd be a rule) exists, means that it's juxtaposed against a rule, the rule being the more common event.

I think it's a corollary to the saying about how rules are meant to be broken. Because clearly that's not the point of rules, and yet, we know it's true.

:hi:

and right now I'm telling mysef to go to bed.

But I never listen

if not the validity of a rule, had a really good point.

And it's one of those 'duh' things that I might not have realized without having it spelled out for me...

:hide:

maybe: "I am crazy as a loon"?

I didn't say anything to the effect of "I'm voting for Obama" = "I have no idea how to tell reality from pretty words." That's because this is the Lounge.

The phrase "by and large" today means "generally speaking," "mostly" or "on the whole." The origin is nautical, and had a very precise meaning. It was an order to the man at the helm of a sailing ship, meaning to sail the ship slightly off the wind. A similar command was "full and by" which meant to "sail as close to the wind as it can go."

The risk of sailing too close to the wind was the danger of being "taken aback" (when the sails press against the mast and progress halts.)

Thus, when a person doesn't want to "sail" directly into a statement, "by and large" is a hedge, a phrase of circumspection, a way of saying that the statement is an imprecise generality.

I see it in writing, from people studying to be teachers! :puke:

And the improper use of there, their, and They're!

Your, you're.

I could go on...

Maybe your unable to comprehend the common folk.

Is so eccentric. I pity anyone trying to learn English just by reading it! "Would've" and "Would of" sound nearly identical in spoken American English, hence the confusion.

I'm more tolerant of common spelling and grammar errors than of bureaucratic double talk. When a local resident yells "Hey! Don't get in that boat! It ain't got no bottom!" I know exactly what she means, and I pick another boat. When my supervisor sends me a memo saying "We need to impact our core values on the mission statement", I scratch my head and go :wtf:

I once got a memo about "high level wellness". I scrawled "What's wrong with 'good health'?" on it with a red pen and sent it back. That probably contributed to my later firing. I suspect I just didn't "impact the mission statement" hard enough: maybe I should have used a Sharpie.

Sometimes being a recovering English major is not easy.

It means "slippery"

me to eat oatmeal. I don't know where it came from and it really doesn't make sense although I know she was saying that a hot breakfast on a cold day was better than a cold breakfast on a cold day.

and fatten you up. For that reason, nobody could convince me to eat something if they said it would "stick to your ribs" when I was a teenage girl.

I just never get that one, and too many people say it.

It makes me shudder for some reason.

Once power is attained it is a requirement that you lie in some way in order to retain it.

i hate that one

Heh. It's a joke, right?

:shrug:

I thought it had something to do with weight, but that's not what I found.

The explanation is stupid. You can look it up yourself. Somebody else said it.

is using 'teh' instead of 'the'. Especially in a sentence where 'the' doesn't exactly fit either. :shrug:

along with Hugh and Series!!!!!!11!!!

Sometime, somewhere somebody posted a link to a glossary of terms for DU, which explained those and a lot of other things that confused me on here.

I cant seem to find the link again, darnit.

intentionally misspelled or gramatically incorrect infantalisms.."icanhascheeseburger"..

that happens when you chat online, especially in a game, especially in a hurry, and it has become meme. U got pwnd cuz i teh r0x0r! I beat you because I rock!

It's icanhascheezburger.

:P

?? Its 1337 d00d.

Nope. I don't understand it at all.

hehe :)

There's nothing good about mornings

It would probably just cause a lot of laughter here.

The other day, when I read the thread about cat scratch fever, I was surprised. I did not know it was a real disease. I thought it was a song. My ignorance is vast.

THe way they say it, it makes no sense.

:wtf:

Duh!

An apparent exception tests the validity of an accepted rule. If one apple doesn't fall to the floor, Newton could be wrong. However, if the apple is on board the space shuttle, the exception is only apparent.

Well, that means that it's getting shittier and shittier, doesn't it?

Know what I'm saying?

to ya know?
y'know?
~nyo?

(how do you make a n with ~ over it? The spanish n)

then cut-n-paste.

ñ

Take "I before E, except after C, and when followed by A as in neighbor and weigh."
The exceptions are so rare or stiking, i.e. caffeine, codeine, that they just look plain wrong. It's a way to remember the rule and you never mispell words like relief or belief because "releif" and "beleif" are so "exceptionable."

Most of the time there are not such signs at intersections, but occasionally there are. These are the exceptions. But because they post these exceptions, it actually lets people know (ask a 13 year old who has never read the DMV written test guide) that the rule is that you generally CAN turn on red.

Not that an exception is proof that a rule is true... more like you can make a generalization, but if there's an exception what's what will prove if it's a rule or not.

Most people use it backwards and wrong, but it's still a stupid expression.

And is it a rule that one can turn right on a red light?

Because both of those have exceptions, as so astutely pointed about above.

I love this expression, because it's completely valid when interpreted in both ways, especially when "proof" is used in the same context as when one "proofs" yeast for baking bread.

a la Rachel Ray. It is a phrase all by itself
:rofl:

:)

:wtf:

I can see how they could become full of piss and vinegar. And pissy to boot.

I think it's a compliment 'cause I get it a lot.

The exception proved the rule.

:wtf:

Also, any time a fundie uses a term improperly - like when they don't use it in the way that Theologians or Religious Anthropologists use it, I'm all like :wtf:

ending with a period, not an ellipsis.

Is NOT being a lying sack of crap now the exception? Or is the speaker just trying to scream out to you that he is surrounded by thieves and liars?

The ones who say this are usually the ones who created it. And they don't look any more clever for realizing this.

1) Why would anyone want flies anyway? Nasty, dirty things...

2) It's hard to eat cake when you don't have any. This gets really confusing when someone asks, "Will you have some cake?" "Sure, but I don't want to eat it. I just want to sit and look at it."

:puke:

when referring to an out-of-the-way place.

:wtf:

Well, of course. If you'd thought of looking there earlier, you would have found it and stopped looking, right?

"You'd never guess where I found my car keys!" makes much more sense. *













*in the refrigerator on top of the cold cuts on one memorable occasion.

I still think it's weird.

closely ahdhering to, like a detective after a suspect. But either closeness, or identity is the gist.

...well actually it is not going anywhere as far as I can tell. I think "tubes" is old (english?) slang for subways...but I don't see how that term could have morphed into a negative statement.

there must be one rule that has no exception. Right?

Who the hell is Scott?

From the Old English Sceot which was a municipal tax formerly levied in Great Britain on the members of a community in proportion to their ability to pay.

To pay scot and lot means to pay in full.

Someone who managed to avoid paying this medieval tax got off "scot free."

huh?

Regardless is OK

Meal

what is the difference between going uptown or going downtown?

Usually used by people to show their independence and/or creativity. It doesn't really show either. All it shows is that you couldn't fucking color when you were young.

Top that one there Musty. :)

(Harlan Ellison)

Usually referring to some tragic f*ck-up

Miguel

I always wonder if the person is otherwise prone to standing on their head. I love this language though, it's such a wonderful, strange mutt.

I like it. And I feel like I almost understand it, but...

So it's for something, then?

also, heard it called rick-a-rack and something called brick-a-brack.....?



Tikki

It's not hard to understand when you really understand what is being said. Nom Sain?