We had this boss at work who was an odious moron and would always conflate idioms, sometimes in front of clients My favorite was We're Getting Thrown Under The Carpet
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"Nothing for nothing" is one my wife's friend got us saying all the time.
aug 18, 2025, 3:17 pm • 0 0 • view
The rousing pep talk from an ok, but not too bright, boss to a collection of programers: "What this company needs is inertia!" That, we can do.
aug 18, 2025, 3:36 pm • 4 0 • view
We had a middle aged neighbor who was calling some of his friends and left a voice mail. I'm assuming he meant to ask how the rug rats were doing but he instead asked how the little carpet munchers had been doing
aug 18, 2025, 3:02 pm • 16 0 • view
"on premise" instead of "on premises" is one i hear a *lot* it's such a parrot flag
aug 18, 2025, 6:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Friend of mine had a high school teacher who was kindof a whiner. One day he vowed to class that he was "no longer going to bend over backwards to break my back for you [ungrateful yadda yadda]"! Legend.
aug 18, 2025, 3:38 pm • 1 0 • view
Swept under the bus.
aug 18, 2025, 4:45 pm • 0 0 • view
For all intensive purposes
aug 18, 2025, 3:26 pm • 1 0 • view
My go to at work is: "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it"
aug 18, 2025, 3:06 pm • 12 0 • view
We sometimes take the standard bridge-crossing to the extreme: We'll build that bridge when we get to it
aug 18, 2025, 4:28 pm • 2 0 • view
Biff?
aug 18, 2025, 3:21 pm • 2 0 • view
Don't cross the road if you can't get out of the kitchen! (I do use "it's not rocket surgery")
aug 18, 2025, 2:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Your boss was Biff Tannen?
aug 18, 2025, 4:26 pm • 0 0 • view
I love idioms. They make language fun. As a teacher I gave to be careful because kids aren’t exposed to them the same way today and so many have problematic origins. Gotta stay on the reservation 😀😀
aug 18, 2025, 2:54 pm • 1 0 • view
Upsetting the apple tart!
aug 18, 2025, 6:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Not really the same but had a boss that would almost always pronounce every ‘T’ as very hard no matter what
aug 18, 2025, 9:58 pm • 0 0 • view
Had a boss once who, when assigning a task, would often tell us to "use your indiscretion" on the details
aug 18, 2025, 4:43 pm • 0 0 • view
I had a boss who habitually said “also as well too”. Like a catchphrase almost. I attribute 10% of my total anxiety to that alone.
aug 18, 2025, 2:54 pm • 10 1 • view
But did it match the drapes?
aug 18, 2025, 4:04 pm • 0 0 • view
A sergeant who worked for my dad said “put that in your hat and smoke it,” which was great, but the one who told soldiers to “use your own discrepancies” was legendary in our house. I still have to think about how to say it correctly because we all said that forever after.
aug 18, 2025, 3:16 pm • 5 0 • view
My boss used to say "Etcetera and so forth" after almost every sentence
aug 18, 2025, 3:14 pm • 0 0 • view
I messed up once with " A rising tide sinks all boats"
aug 18, 2025, 11:43 pm • 0 0 • view
My favorite is "I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."
aug 18, 2025, 4:52 pm • 0 0 • view
That sounds… kinky
aug 18, 2025, 3:01 pm • 0 0 • view
Well burn that bridge when we get to it
aug 18, 2025, 2:51 pm • 3 0 • view
Lmao I say this one all the time Along with “well that train has sailed”
aug 18, 2025, 3:01 pm • 8 0 • view
that train has left the port
aug 18, 2025, 3:02 pm • 2 0 • view
I had a "c'est la gare!" boss, and every time, as soon as he exited the room, one of us would comment "yup, that's a train station all right."
aug 18, 2025, 3:27 pm • 13 0 • view
This was more of an English as a second language thing than anything else, but I will forever remember someone telling us they’d ‘hold up the pole’ instead of ‘hold down the fort’. Instantly burned into my memory and sometimes I have to pause to remember the right one almost 20 years later. 😂
aug 18, 2025, 2:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Did your boss happen to be Schmidt from New Girl
aug 18, 2025, 6:33 pm • 0 0 • view
aug 18, 2025, 3:15 pm • 2 0 • view
That's shooting a different kettle of fish.
aug 18, 2025, 2:57 pm • 2 0 • view
I had a boss, a colossal moron, who would say "mute point" instead of "moot point." It drove us nuts.
aug 18, 2025, 3:11 pm • 2 0 • view
For all intensive purpose, this is correct tho.
aug 18, 2025, 3:12 pm • 33 0 • view
Let's not put the car before the horse, lest our French benefits jump a shark tank.
aug 18, 2025, 4:20 pm • 2 0 • view
Wrong road to hone, Norm.
aug 18, 2025, 4:52 pm • 0 0 • view
I think we’re honing in on an important point here.
aug 18, 2025, 3:13 pm • 1 0 • view
We just take for granite that people know these things.
aug 18, 2025, 3:45 pm • 4 0 • view
I was an intensive purposes guy for a long, long time. I used to work with a lady who would often refer to DEFCON 5 as the worst stage of DEFCON and I had to constantly remind her she really meant DEFCON 1
aug 18, 2025, 3:15 pm • 6 0 • view
I like to intentionally screw these idioms up every now and then just to see if anyone is paying attention. "For all intensive porpoises..." Just see who raises an eyebrow.
aug 18, 2025, 3:17 pm • 6 0 • view
My 3yo loves challenging us with “can’t catch me if you can”
aug 18, 2025, 3:24 pm • 0 0 • view
A senior guy at my job had a lot of these. We things worked well, it went off like a gang of busters.
aug 18, 2025, 3:00 pm • 3 0 • view
I recently heard a British politician on BBC Radio 4 say “we need to grasp the nettle by the horns”. 🫤
aug 19, 2025, 3:24 am • 0 0 • view
"Flustrated." The way I would grind my teeth every time my boss would take two words with obvious meanings and use them to create one word that doesn't exist.
aug 18, 2025, 3:35 pm • 2 0 • view
Except "flustrated" is an excellent word!
aug 18, 2025, 4:35 pm • 0 0 • view
Pontic Steppe Royalty circa 1400: "we're getting thrown under the carpet"
aug 18, 2025, 2:50 pm • 2 0 • view
I had a colleague, by no means a moron, who used to mix and match idiomatic phrases through some sort of blissful inattention. My favourites were: You're barking up the wrong horse. We need to separate the sheep from the chaff.
aug 18, 2025, 4:11 pm • 0 0 • view
That’s worse than getting raped over hot coals!
aug 18, 2025, 3:02 pm • 0 0 • view
"He's trying to pull the wolverine over our eyes"
aug 18, 2025, 3:31 pm • 8 0 • view
Ouch.
aug 18, 2025, 4:00 pm • 2 0 • view
I do occasionally say that someone is “not the sharpest knife on the Christmas tree,” but at least I know what I’m doing there.
aug 18, 2025, 4:27 pm • 0 0 • view
"Now the Tables have Elephant in the Roomed"
aug 18, 2025, 2:53 pm • 0 0 • view
Former boss would say funny things but he was brilliant. English was his second language. My favorites include "I have been on the rodeo before" and "We're shooting ourselves in the head with that one." Another non-native English speaker said sadly of our boss, "He is from the school that is old."
aug 18, 2025, 4:33 pm • 0 0 • view
This senior partner in my first job would misuse the phrase "flush out" for "flesh out." So everyone else in the firm misused it the same way, not as a joke but to fit in. "We need to flush out the details." "We can't start until everything is flushed out." You would have thought we were plumbers.
aug 18, 2025, 3:24 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s called a malapropism from a character in a play called I think the rivals?
aug 18, 2025, 9:59 pm • 0 0 • view
Dems are sweeping trans kids into the cracks midstream
aug 18, 2025, 4:19 pm • 6 0 • view
there was an administrator at my high school who once said "you've got to step up to the plate or you'll fall behind and you won't be able to dig your way out"
aug 18, 2025, 3:37 pm • 2 0 • view
aug 18, 2025, 6:04 pm • 1 0 • view
It ain't rocket surgery.
aug 18, 2025, 2:58 pm • 1 0 • view
My ex liked to say "it's no sweat off my apple" she was hot so I let it slide. It also came up that her whole life until we met she thought "packing heat" meant an erection. She was a hoot
aug 18, 2025, 4:18 pm • 0 0 • view
I was your boss?
aug 18, 2025, 2:52 pm • 0 0 • view
No one is Yogi Berra. Except Yogi Berra.
aug 18, 2025, 2:52 pm • 22 0 • view
Well, You say that....
aug 18, 2025, 2:56 pm • 0 0 • view
Oh I love mixing up idioms. My favorite to use are, Its not rocket surgery and Are bears Catholic?
aug 18, 2025, 3:20 pm • 7 0 • view
"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" was one of my pop's favorites
aug 18, 2025, 4:01 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh for sure, but delicate company requires a more delicate wrong idiom
aug 18, 2025, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
Rocket surgery is always a fun one.
aug 18, 2025, 3:36 pm • 2 0 • view
"..odious moron..." is my phrase of the week to use as often as possible, but only wear the shoe that fits.
aug 18, 2025, 7:55 pm • 0 0 • view
My boss is fond of referencing improv classes and their golden rule "And, yes."
aug 18, 2025, 2:59 pm • 6 0 • view
I cringe at hearing ppl say they have a good ideal vs. idea,, but my husband worked with a union rep from another field and the guy said his people had good "work ethnics", even in speeches.
aug 18, 2025, 3:39 pm • 3 0 • view
I had a friend who said "half of one, six dozen of the other," which changes it somewhat. (English was not her first or probably second language.)
aug 18, 2025, 2:54 pm • 13 0 • view