brown bag
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catch 22
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road rage
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vsa
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pct
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mle
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But it's my trademark! Chained_bear says so!
rt - wasting cake!! That's not hunky-dory -- is it? ;0
Cake??
*indiscriminately flings cupcakes hither and yon*
D'oh!
Silly dontcry. Pieholes are for pie!
*gives the royal wave with one hand while stuffing cake into her piehole with the other*
Gather around! Gather around! Let's all eat cake at Bilby's expense! Thus, we can have a cake and eat it, too. We just have to make a point of eating only Bilby's cakes, keeping ours to ourselves.
*nom nom nom*
*declares from royal balcony*
Let dontcry eat cake!
I love cake. I like eating it better than having it. Bilby, Can I have, I mean eat, yours?
And now for a pointless comment:
I was given cake today. It was very tasty.
Well, I don't know about Dontcry, but I loved your explanations, especially the examples provided (your illustration rocks, Bilby!). And slovenly and flabby is going on my list.
Completely agree, sionnach. The contradiction is between possessing a (whole) cake, and at the same time enjoying eating it.
I'm a cake haver. At parties and things people give me cake, even when I tell them I don't eat cake. So the cake just sits there, and I pretend to be happy about having it. Then they make me take it home so I still have it. I can have cake and not eat it, oh yes. But I can't have cake and eat it too. It's the having that seems to be important to folks.
P.S. Cake's for throwing, too.
"You can't have your cake and eat it, too" (It's "You can't EAT your cake and have it, too" and if you just thought about it for a second, you'd realize that. Of course you CAN HAVE your cake and then EAT it. But you cannot EAT your cake and then still HAVE it.
Say what now?
world wide words weighs in
I have never said anything but "can't have your cake and eat it", and have never found this even remotely contradictory, because the simultaneity of the two verbs is implicit. (There's no "then" in the sentence to cue an ordering; as Quinion points out, inserting "both" might make it a little clearer).
On google hits, "have your cake and eat it" outnumbers "eat your cake and have it" by 605,000 to 26,300.
I am in complete agreement that "I could care less" is a slovenly barbarism, indicative of flabby intellects.
:)
C_B, you sound too much like me for my piece of mind *g* Especially in your signature line.
I have a list of stuff that makes my skin crawl, and some of these examples are on there. (Signed, Too Lazy to Go Find It.) I would say clichés only become clichés because they are idioms in the first place.
But to be fair, I haven't sat down and read this list really carefully yet either. Nor have I looked up idiom in the dictionary lately. Signed, Too Lazy to Do Much of Anything But Spout Off Opinions Nobody Asked For.
*raises hand timidly* Aren't they clichéd expressions instead of idioms? At least, I thought they were (the last ones posted, I mean).
Dontcry, I'm in agreement with you. But I've also got an impression (from reading stuff online, mostly) that the phrase "I couldn't care less" is mostly British, while its companion "I could care less" is more used in America. The latter does sound a bit nonsensical, if you ask me, but if so many people are still using it, there should be some justification for it. As to the other expression, "you can’t have your cake and eat it, too" sounds more natural to me :)
c_b, Bueller is sick today. But, if I may: English IS my first language -- and the first language of most of my friends. Still, I hear them use "idioms" like "idiots" and nearly bite the tip of my tongue right off NOT correcting them for the 100th time on phrases they say incorrectly, here are two of my 'favorites':
"I could care less" (It's "I COULDN'T care less" and if you just thought about it for a second, you might be able to remember that!)
"You can't have your cake and eat it, too" (It's "You can't EAT your cake and have it, too" and if you just thought about it for a second, you'd realize that. Of course you CAN HAVE your cake and then EAT it. But you cannot EAT your cake and then still HAVE it.
Honestly, what I put up with...
Mia, it looks like a lot of these terms are idioms. Just a thought. (Surely someone will argue with me about the meaning of idiom now... right? Anyone? Bueller?)
To dispel some concerns, I have too say that I have no objections whatsoever to being corrected or amended – in fact, all suggestions on proper usage or spelling of words and expressions are very welcome. I'm here to learn, and I've already learnt so much from all of you.
As to this list – it mostly serves as a repository for those words that I do not wish to see on my 2008 Wordlist, which is for words I want to memorize when there's enough time, or on my "invisible list", which is for fun Wordie creations or words I'm feeling partial to for one reason or another. This is not a themed list. Though I'm open to any suggestions on how to name it properly.
Sionnach: I love all kinds of comments and the subsequent discussions they provoke, and it would take very strong and colorful language to really offend me, so don't ever be afraid to comment on my too broad, too narrow, or too feeble definitions! :)
And herding cats is going straight to my "invisible" (read: favourite) list, Chained_Bear!
If I may... I don't think this list is mostly boring at all. It's spawned quite a few conversations, which is great! ... Er... as long as you don't find it obnoxious.
Also, I think many of these phrases are really easy to understand for native speakers (as you mentioned), but trying to pin down a definition is like... umm... herding cats. (Which I respectfully submit you might want to add to the list. :))
Mia: Many of the definitions you provide for the words on this list strike me as being a little bit off - either overly reductive, or missing some nuance which is actually important.
I don't know if you want people to comment when this is the case, or if you find it obnoxious. It's an odd list - the phrases range from numbingly cliched ("at the end of the day") to potentially interesting ("behavioural economics", "digital intellectual property").
You'll never win, because I'm pants at categorizing things!
Only words that have no place on any of my other lists go there. Still, they have some basic characteristics:
1) only phrases (that means, two words+);
2) words that go together with each other;
3) MOSTLY BORING (but sometimes so useful to know).
You see, not being a native speaker, I sometimes string together words that may sound correct to my ears, but are utterly incongruous, or even laughable to a native speaker of English, who can just tell by hearing them spoken, well, it doesn't sound quite right. Like, when I say intelligent planning and mean intelligent design, or electronic observation and mean electronic surveillance instead. Or substitute internal monologue for much less used internal soliloquy. Language is serious business, as you well know :)
Is there logic to what goes on this list? I feel like I'm playing a lateral thinking game trying to find a pattern.