English is a stupid language. No matter which way you slice it (and there’s an example) it’s hard to find a language with more rules that mean very little other than that they exist so that you can have exceptions to them. But, we’re not talking about spelling rules, or not ending a sentence with a preposition, no, we’re talking about phrases that really grate your carrot (not one of the phrases in question, I quite like this one).
When I say jump, you say “How high?”
I’ve never understood this one. If I ever tell someone to jump, there’s probably going to be a reason. If there isn’t a reason, I’m just going to see you asking stupid questions and think you’re being insubordinate. If I tell you to jump, you’d better start jumping, at that point you can ask “Is this high enough?” but, if you’re not jumping, theres a good chance your ankles will be cut off with a scythe.
It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick
It’s hard to think of something that could be worse than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. The list of things that are better is almost infinite, a poke in the eye with a blunt stick, or even, and I’m going to go out on a limb here, not getting poked in the eye at all.
The best thing since sliced bread
So, what was sliced bread the best thing since, regular bread? I can see the adverts now. Sliced bread, the best thing since bread. And before bread? Hmm! Bread, from the people who brought you fire! Which leads me into the next one…
If you play with fire, you;re going to get burned
I’m convinced that they left something out here. I’ve never once been burned by playing with fire, and I’ve played some stupid games, firelighter volleyball, skoppie-blik (if you haven’t heard of this one, essentially you take a roll of toilet paper, soak it in meths, and light it. After that you kick it around and hope like hell it doesn’t stick to your shoes.) yet, with all this enormous stupidity I’ve only been burned doing regular things, like cooking. The phrase should be if you’re a complete idiot and have no self-preservation instinct and play with fire, there’s a very good chance that you’ll get burned. Not quite as snappy, but at least it’s true.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee
Woohoo, so I’m going to aimlessly flit around looking for flowers until eventually I hit you once with a miniscule prick and then die in great pain. Yes, now that’s a great phrase, and this is from Cassius Clay when he still had most of his faculties.
Lol, ROFLMAO, WTF, etc
Now, I’ve actually heard people use these in conversations. Admittedly, they couldn’t have been very interesting conversations, or very intelligent people, but, nevertheless, talking like a 14 year-old AOL script-kiddie just removes all doubt about your IQ.
Now, I’m sure there are a hell of a lot more, but none of them are on the tip of my tongue (I lied, but I thought putting one in the final paragraph would be amusing. It may have failed, but, I don’t care). But, if I’ve managed to get people to use one less stupid phrase, then the world will be a better place.
That’s the problem with idioms - if you rephrase them to be more truthful, they get less catchy. Perhaps there’s some sort of mathematical relationship:
catchiness x truthfulness = constant
So possibly, if you’re in search of the ultimate catch phrase, the process would be to gradually eliminate as much truth from it as possible