Sunday, December 20, 2009

Don't you hate it when people say....

Webcore had a mini-huff on RR the other day about people say ''it's too cold to snow.'' As he noted, they do have %$^$% snow in Norway.

Got any to share with the class?

21 comments:

tincanman said...

How about ''It's quiet. Too quiet.....''
Now wtf does that mean? No no, please don't try to explain.
My dad said it once when we were sitting in a deer blind (It was apparently too quiet for the deer too) and I didn't hear it again until about a year ago when my step-son started(I think it was in Shrek).
hmm, it's gone awful quiet in here

Chris said...

Tin, you've given me a place to say this, as opposed to doing so in public, but I'm not that keen on lame generalisations of this sort: "150kg of grass every day? Oh cool, another Grateful Dead fan!"

tincanman said...

Sorry Chris, you're right. Apologies.

FP said...

But how is he IN HIMSELF?
Go figure.....

Unknown said...

"Have you cake and eat it too" as opposed to "eat your cake and have it too"! To be fair, I think the French version of that saying is altogether less confusing [you can't have the butter and the money for the butter, and if you're really cheeky, you'll also want the cremière].

Coincidentally, Ms Ejay's brother was visiting ealier this week from Ireland, and he mentioned that people did say that, he wasn't sure what it meant, but it was the first time I'd heard it.

DarceysDad said...

I'm beginning to get massively fed up with the phrase "a must-win game", but that's not really the same thing, is it?

Chris said...

Thanks, tin, for that and the RR comment, although I think 'inaccurate', 'outmoded', 'weak' or several other words would have been better than 'insensitive'. Look: the band ceased to exist 14 years ago; most modern-day heavy dope smokers have probably never even heard of them; 80% of all musicians smoke/have smoked grass, going back to the likes of Louis Armstrong, because it facilitates music appreciation and creativity; as an example of the range of individuals who are Grateful Dead fans, one of the highest-ranking Civil Servants is so much of a Deadhead he maintains a site about them; etc.

I ended up apologising to sowc last week for no discernible reason but, if this comment upsets you, tin, I won't be going down that road again here. I'm having a very difficult time at the moment, continuing a process that started some eight long months ago, and I'm probably a little over-sensitive to some things.
At the end of the day, the chickens have to come home to roost somewhere....

tincanman said...

Well said Chris and I'm not upset at all. It was a cheap shot and unnecesary.
Sorry you are having a difficult time - pop in here anytime for a break.

Carole said...

Chris, I hope your difficulties get resolved soon.

A comment that really annoys me is when someone tells you that what you are eating is "A meal in itself".

I mean, WTF?

Unknown said...

Oh, the phrase "so-and-so is an abortion". What the flip is that about?

FP said...

Just sending support to Chris. Hang in there. Positive thought waves from Strasbourg. FP

treefrogdemon said...

Sorry to hear that, Chris - I hope things get better for you.

By the way, which GD album should I get first?

Chris said...

Thank you for the supportive comments, people. I try to keep all that stuff away from here but I'm sure something of my mood occasionally permeates any comments I do make. We cool, tin.

tfd: the right question to cheer me up! Well... virtually all the official releases are on Spotty and there's always archive.com for many of the concerts... But I think you'd find songs of interest (along with some of their most disciplined playing) on American Beauty, Workingman's Dead and Europe 72, for starters. Carole's fave, Reckoning, has a lot of excellent acoustic folk songs, some of which you doubtless already know. Anthem Of The Sun is still my first love, and it is a great trip (from a bygone era, I suppose). Anything from later than 1980 is a bit more hit-and-miss.

Makinavaja said...

I shudder when someone starts a sentence with: "Don't take this personally, but..."

Incidentally the cake and eat it thing in Spain is "You can't swim and keep an eye on your clothes" as one who has often been to the beach on his own this seems to make good sense to me.

Chris, whatever it is, I hope things work out for the best. I've got a lot of crap stuff going on in my life too and rather sadly let it all spill over on RR a couple of weeks ago with a pointless tantrum. Chin up and good luck!

steenbeck said...

I've always been uncomfortable with "there but for the grace of god go I." If you stop to think about it, what does that say about god, and grace, and suffering, and justice. Ok, maybe don't stop to think about it...

Unknown said...

Hey Chris, I finally saw A Serious Man! Usually with the Coen Brothers, I find it's one on/one off, and after No Country For Old Men, I was half expecting another Ladykillers. It wasn't top top quality, but I liked so many parts of it. What's the deal with the tornado though?

Chris said...

All that struggling and striving just gets blown away in the end? By an act of god?

ejaydee said...

Hmm, but it seems to me like the main character is being punished, instantly.
Anyway I laughed a lot. Loved the wife, in fact loved all the female characters, loved the sheer Jewishness of it, and the bit at the beginning too.

lambretinha said...

Expressions with the potential to unveil anyone's homicidal instincts? Lots of them in spanish, but those wouldn'm make any sense here. In English, I'd say "gamechanger" it's particularly annoying. I mean, you can almost hear the bandwagon coming round the bend...

+1s re: support for every 'Spiller going through hard times. Hang in there, you all...

gordonimmel said...

@ejaydee, the phrase 'to have your cake and eat it' only makes real sense if you know that the verb 'to have' is in this case used in it's older sense of 'to keep'. i.e think of the phrase as 'to keep your cake and eat it too' and it should make sense.

@steenbeck, I often mutter the 'there but for the grace of god' phrase under my breath if I see others in an unfortunate situation since I recognise the impact that outrageous fortune has on each of our lifes. It doesn't necessarily have to be about divine intervention, just a weird confluence of accidental happenstance.

FP said...

We just watched Burn After Reading on the sofa last night. I cannot see Brad Pitt in that film now without chuckling. As the Coens said "he embraced his inner dork". Every word, gesture, grimace is a joy. Joel and Ethan rool.