American Idiom

You know, l fux with the English language (well I guess it's technically American but work with me)...it's a very flexible language. I have a hell of a time experimenting around here with it every day (even wrote posts with my favorite and least favorite words) and if you have even a halfway knowledege of it, it's a fascinating way to communicate. There are myriad ways to say what one wants to say, and based on the tone, connotations, and context of the words you choose, the same phrase can have completely different meanings. (Think about something as simple as saying you will "take care of" someone in different scenarios...depending on the whos, whats, why's and hows, it could mean you're about to nurse a sick relative, pay for a friend's meal, watch a neighbor's kids, serve a john, or rub out a snitch before trial.)

However, despite my relationship with English, I can't say I truly understand all of it. (Just like any other relationship, I guess...) The explantion is simple: English's biggest strength and greatest weakness is a lot like Wikipedia's...it's on point most of the time, but any asshole can pretty much just add to it as he sees fit as long as he has enough people to back him up on it. (Here's proof!) As a result, along with all of the beautifully crafted words and phrases we hear in conversations, read in books...oh wait...um, on the internet and use ourselves, our language is littered with a bunch of shit that just doesn't make sense. People refer to most of them as "idioms", and while some are clever and fun, others give me brain spasms. I understand figures of speech...but I also figure that most people who speak these things a lot have no fucking idea what they're talking about. I might be wrong, but I'll share and you decide. Let's just dive right in here... (see, there's one that makes sense!)

"For the birds"- What the fuck does that even mean? Unless the place where you said that is a pet shop, a bird sanctuary, a statue in a park or a meeting of some orinthological society, that place is certainly not for the birds. In fact, I don't even think birds would like it most places people say that. I even at one point tried to justify if by assuming "birds" was in the sense that refers to females, but I heard someone say school was for the birds and there were definitely dudes there. I also thought about the original meaning for the school thing...while many of my classmates were about as smart as birds, some of them were male and most didn't have feathers. Wrong on both counts. Chris Brown says that "all that bullshit is for the birds"...I say all that "for the birds" is bullshit.

"Cold shoulder"- Another one I don't get. Out of all the body parts to show to indicate disdain and contempt, you come up with the shoulder? How about the cold finger? The cold buttcrack? The cold taint? (Not THAT'S disrespect...if somebody shows me their taint out off spite, it's an automatic duel to the death!) Anyway, how does a shoulder become cold independently of the rest of the body? I thought those puffy vests with fur trim white girls like to wear all winter and pretend they aren't freezing in offered the answer, but those are cold shoulderS...plural. Whatever...the cold shoulder can pardon my back.

"Drunk as a fish"- I've been drunk many, many times. I've been drunk within the last 12 hours. I've been buzzed, twisted, trashed, fucked up, three sheets to the wind, and occasionally (and unintentionally) wasted...but never drunk as a fish. You know why? Fish swim around in water, which is about zero proof. If fish swam in rum, I would wring out fish filets...but they don't. Drinking "LIKE" a fish? Sure, I get that. Being drunk AS a fish...not so much. Last call for this nonsense.

"soup to nuts"- Does it describe a "Meals on Wheels" targeted at crazy folk or a situation in which minestrone was unnecessarily sent back in a restaurant by a picky diner and the cook decided to show his displeasure at the insult? Who knows...

"cut the mustard"- How the hell does one cut mustard? It's used as a metaphor for competence and ability, and I say you have it in spades if you can actually cut a liquid condiment. I mean, I guess if you wanted to be a smartass you could freeze it and cut it that way, but just the image of a mustard-flavored popsicle is enough to make me disqualify that idea. I just can't squeeze any meaning out of it.

"dead as a doorknob"- Obituary: "Doorknob passed away yesterday after a long, fulfilling life. Doorknob had a hard start...it was screwed almost as soon as it was made, but after being adopted and given an upright background, it was able to unlock many opportunities for itself. After a short career as a dentist, it had a string of run-ins with the law in which it was claimed that it had given a black eye to a number of housewives. However, Doorknob's life motto was "everyone gets a turn", and he often applied this to its own life. It was able to turn its life around, and spent its remaining years as a philanthroist, opening doors for itself and others. Eventually, old age caught up to it and it could not even function without shaking and jiggling, but it performed its duties well until the time of its death. It will be truly missed by the family that adopted it, especially the younger sister, who claims his big brother locks her in the room it once lived in for hours at a time." See how stupid that sounds? Yeah...

"360 degree turnaround"- I love when people say this...it's a favorite of new years' resolvers. They mean to indicate that they plan on making a radical change in their lives, but they don't know that 180 would have covered them...360 puts you right back where you started after spinning out for a while. Actually, considering how the plans of most folk who say this turn out, it might be a more accurate description this way.

"at a fraction of the cost"- You see this on infomercials all the time. They love to say how their product or service does as much or more than the competition "at a fraction of the cost", but never mention what that fraction is. As I mention here all the time, I'm no mathlete...but there are a lot of fractions. Sure, it could be half or even a quarter...I know those measurements, they use it to ration out weed...but isn't 5/6ths a fraction? 7/8ths? I'm not sure you're saving all that much. How about 2 2/3? (That's like 8/3...hey, I did pick up a little something! Of course, they still lied when they said I'd NEED that in school.) That's more than 1! The thing about this phrase is that it's only a fraction of the information you need.

"cat's out of the bag"- Where to start with this one...
1) Who on Landry's green earth keeps a cat in a bag?
2) Why didn't it try to escape?
3) Was the cat sleeping? It was pretty still for a long time.
4) What kind of creepy cat is comfortable sleeping in a bag?
5) How much do the person's hands who placed this cat in this bag look like hamburger meat?
6) Do they plan to eventually re-bag the cat?
7) Paper or plastic?

"stay black"- This one irks me for obvious reasons. First of all, what choice do I have? I will die exactly as black as I was born. Second, nobody else says that shit...you don't see people going "stay white", "stay Cherokee", "stay Korean", "stay Arab"...not even "stay lez" or anything. Third, it's mostly black people that say it to me...they should know firsthand that there's no black-in-the-box handle that you can crank for a while until a white guy pops out of you like one of those little knickknack people that fit inside each other...so...what? Are they concerned about my Beiber exposure levels? I intentionally keep them low...are they afraid I'll run around in whiteface? Wouldn't work, the beard is a dead giveaway. Are they concerned I'll just wake up some other color one day? I've heard of spontaneous combustion, but spontaneous Caucasian? I think we can put our worries to bed here...I'm gonna stay black whether you say it to me or not, so just save your breath, feel me?

That about wraps it up for this look at some common sayings that lack common sense. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I just can't see how they mean what they're supposed to. Some turns of phrase just make my head spin...