I was thinking about the phrase ‘The pot calling the kettle black’. It comes from a time where cooking was done over open fires and cookware would become visibly ashy. (Fun fact: It first appears and was perhaps coined by Cervantes in Don Quixote!)
What are some other idioms that have lost their literal connection to time? What would be a good modern replacement?
“Avoiding things like the plague” because people did not actually seem to want to avoid the plague last time around.
Those that failed to avoid actual plagues often lived only long enough to regret it.
This was true also in the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. And there were anti-vaxxers even then.
Too soon.
Or not, really.
We’re the ones who survived, we’re allowed to joke about it
Oh, I didn’t say not to joke about it. I just really miss Herman Cain, OK?
/s you animals.
Avoid things like the crypto xD or the AI slop to make it super modern
Oh, man, when it comes to nautical idioms, I could go on all day. There are so many, and they’ve lost their literal connections so thoroughly, you probably don’t even think of some of them as idioms. A few that occur to me immediately:
- taken aback (wind on the wrong side of the sails)
- give a wide berth (extra space for a vessel to maneuver)
- leeway (unwanted downwind slippage of the vessel when in motion)
- above board (on deck, the board being the section of the hull running fore and aft just above the water line)
- onboard (to load onto the deck of the ship)
- go by the board (to fall off of the ship into the water, passing the board on the way)
- hand over fist (two-handed motion to pull in sails, ropes, etc. as quickly as possible)
- high and dry (above the tide line)
- loose cannon (a gun insufficiently secured would cause havoc on a warship when fired, or as the ship rolled in waves)
Honestly, I’m not sure that I want modern equivalents, since many are so rich in imagery.
Don’t forget “I like the cut of your jib”
Batten down the hatches too.
Three sheets to the wind!
It’s a shame most people think that’s about sails being up, but sheets are the ropes that control the sails, if they are to the wind you’re not going to make any way
Also today I was literally at the bitter end anchoring a boat with almost all of the available chain.
Honestly, I’m not sure that I want modern equivalents, since many are so rich in imagery.
I do love the imagery of “loose Canon”, and by “love” I mean that as it’s been described and depicted, it’s a truly horrifying situation. So it makes for a really visceral image.
A quick aside: there’s this murder mystery/logic puzzle game called “the Return of the Obra Dinn” that takes place on a merchant ship. The game is basically like a series of still frame dioramas that you have to analyze and figure out what’s going on. There’s a particularly striking scene with a cannon which breaks loose from its chains and several unfortunate sailors. It took me a long time to actually find the third sailor in the scene… (There wasn’t a lot left)
Very nice! Amazing how ingrained they’ve become. “That new recruit is a car without brakes” just doesn’t ring the same does it?
I thought “by the boards” referred to losing the mast specifically snapped off right at the deck.
Eating a dead horse - not unless you buy the budget beef mince at Tesco
Read like rabbits - rabbits can’t read or even hold books
Nip it in the butt - that’s sexual assault, you’re not allowed to do that any more
Get down off your high horse - you’re not allowed to get animals high either
Kids should be shorn and not herd - goats have hair, not wool, and can’t be shorn. Their natural tendency to herd is a difficult behaviour to break.
Under the weather - unless you’re a pilot you’re going to be under the weather most of the time
A blessing in the skies - unless your bishop is a pilot too, that’s not going to happen.
Fight off more than you can chew - I don’t know where to start with this one,
Boneappletea
I always thought it was “nip it in the bud” where a bud is the early stage of a plants development / before the flower emerges on a flower. So meaning “kill it before it grows larger and that becomes harder”
Has to be trolling because they are all wrong.
Under the weather is right.
And get off your high horse is right too. So the whole thing was a weird comment, leaving the readers uncertain if OP was trolling or just…yeah mostly trolling.
They probably messed that one up. I wonder how they meant to mangle it?
surely there’s a /s or a trollface i’m missing
I’m not pulling your Greg, if that’s what you mean.
You leave my Greg alone. He’s perfectly capable pulling himself & if he needs help I have gloves!
I was half expecting that to have been posted by LadyMondegreen
You almost got me.
i thought it was breed like rabbitsd.
I think the outdated/obsolete nature of terms in many idioms is what makes them charming.
It also makes it pretty clear you aren’t using them in a literal sense. If your idioms are too new/unfamiliar and your terminology is too modern/relevant then people might just think you’re being literal and not idiomatic.
All the horse ones because we don’t use horses anymore. There a ton of them.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Who tf gets a gift horse?
Saddle up. Who tf has a saddle?
Hold your horses. Who tf has horses to hold?
Get off your high horse. Who tf has a high horse?
Beat a dead horse. WTF.
Great examples! ‘champing at the bit’ also comes to mind. I think cars fill in pretty nicely as a horse substitute. ‘Saddle up’ has ‘buckle up’. Hold your horses has ‘Hit your brakes’. As for gift horses… ‘Don’t look a gift car under the hood?’ Hmm doesn’t quite work
“Don’t check the resale value of a gift car” maybe
But presumably a gift horse is worth something as long as it walks. This summer my kid got a “gift car” and it was critical look at both the undercarriage and the resale value. Thank goodness he was only out the cost of a tow and mechanics inspection
Quit horsing around. You’re really putting the cart before the horse.
Edit: sorry, gotta go. I need to see a man about a horse.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Don’t check the dipstick of a gifted car.
They have the same meaning that you’re trying see if the horse is healthy and the car’s engine is in good condition.
To update replace all with car.
Dont look under the hood of a gift car.
Buckle up.
Hold your engine.
Get out of your limousine.
Turn the key on a drowned engine.
You could still use Hold your horses because the car has horse power. Pressing the brake pedal literally holds your horses.
But that in itself is an outdated idiom. A car has engine power.
I’m sure there’s something there with e-scooters. Get off your segway max extreme and get down here. Don’t look at the speed regulator of a free scooter. Hold onto your brakes? Idk I’m just spitballing here
I dunno. Yamiks still beats on horses… In both ways.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Who tf gets a gift horse?
A buddy in college accidentally said “gifted horse“. Then his girlfriend said “very much so” and we never let him hear the end of it
I don’t think it’s the char/open fire but rather that both pot a d kettle would be made of the same black cast iron
in our holiday house we still cook on an iron stove. we also installed a small gas burner, because that stove is the heating system for all the 3 small rooms. it gets really hot - so usually you don’t want to use it during summer.
but the original pans are out of copper. they have a complex shape so, if you remove the cooking top, you can hang them directly into the fire. cast iron surely was and still is a thing. but i will always choose copper over cast iron for something i want hot quickly. i would bet that most kettles where made out of something thin and conductive, so your water is hot quicker.
all our copper is black from the sud.
Alternatively, shiny kettle and the pot sees its own black reflection in it.
(But yeah, I assumed they’re both black/cast iron)
In my home country they say “Cheap as Onions” (eq in English : Cheap as Dirt)
Looking at the prices on Onions nowadays …
On Italy, when something is expensive, we say that it’s salted. Because salt was expensive. Hasn’t been for a while but the word is still there!
“Worth ones salt” is older and sort of Italian (Roman)
Same in Germany
A stitch in time saves nine.
This refers to a time when clothes were hard to come by and often homemade. If they tore, a small tear could be fixed with one stitch of needle and thread, but if let go too long, it would take many more stitches to repair a bigger rip.
Change your oil (or tires) in time, or change your car.
This is still relevant, please take care of your clothes.
whats the point of a modern replacement? idioms connect us across time and when they really have not modern sense (which there is enough understanding of cookware I don’t think we hit that with pot and kettle) then it becomes an interesting backstory.
No real reason, just something to talk about while we all wait around to die really 🤷. I agree with your sentiment - the stories and imagery behind old idioms actually make them more interesting, I dont think they’ll be going anywhere soon!
To be funny is why.
I always thought of that idiom as the pot (something generally cast iron and not polished) calling the kettle (something that is polished and therefore reflective) black.
Being that the pot sees itself in the reflection, but calls the kettle that as a derogatory thing, unknowing of it’s personal alignment.
I think that the phrase is so old that the difference between a pot and a kettle might have been fairly subtle differences in shape, but both would be black cast iron.
Which is nowhere near as profound as your interpretation.
I assumed the idiom was from a time when all cookware was made of cast iron.
To be honest, I was never prepared to know what “hoisted by one’s own pitard” meant, and knowing today, I still have no clue how this was ever relevant to any time period.
A pitard is a timed bomb used to to blow down a door or wall. The idiom is about blowing yourself up mistakenly instead. Were people using these routinely at some point?
Blowing up or at least weakening a portion of a castle wall during a siege would be useful to the besiegers. Even a small petard could break into a building for nefarious purposes. And being a sapper is notoriously dangerous even now.
Of course Shakespeare could have used the name of a larger bomb, or “speared with his own sword” or something. But Shakespeare’s audience would also have clocked the fact that pétard is a French pun from péter which makes it a fart joke. And he never missed a chance for a fart joke.
before the invention of doorknobs, doors were indeed single use. they would be blown open with every use. this is why we invented chamber pots. midnight bathroom breaks were very loud, before people had pots.
I would like to subscribe to your history newsletter.
So is “hoisted” in this case the equivalent of “yeeted”?
Ain’t no two ways about it
They don’t need to have been used routinely, just knowledge of their use had to be common. In the same way that “shooting yourself in the foot” makes sense even to people who have never used a gun. It was enough to know what “hoist” and “petard” meant to piece together the intent of the phrase. Then once the phrase itself became common the specific knowledge was no longer necessary.
Yup.
Like that one scene in The Two Towers when Legolas suddenly became unable to shoot his bow.
Britta will explain: https://youtu.be/KuuafUtVte0
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I love head over heels as, in love.
It’s vice versa that makes actual sense, but that was considered too obviously risqué in the age the phrase was coined.
My head over her heels ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I think that many historic trades have been automated to the extent their old terminology is obscure but lives on in idioms.
“To the bitter end” (bitter end meaning the lose end of a rope, from rope-working - not entirely extinct but obscure). Perhaps that one could be “To the edge node”!
“Strike while the iron is hot” (from blacksmithing, again not entirely an extinct craft but largely replaced by automation). Maybe “Cross while the light is green?”
The bitter end isn’t loose, it is bitten to (tied to) the windlass. Let the line out until there are no turns left on the windlass
Drinks like coffee and tea can become bitter when you get down to the dregs. That’s what the first saying makes me think of.
Same with distillation, you get the heavies that you don’t really want in your drink so you end the process. Ie the bitter end.
Wow, great examples! I never realised that first one had a historical meaning. I suppose even without the context it still makes sense because of the adjective ‘bitter’.
I wonder if any common sayings nowadays will catch on and become long lived idioms in the future?
That’s very good.
Not quite updating, but in my house we say “like sweeping the yard” to indicate that something is pointless and wasting time.
“Boss has us doing obviously pointless busy work today”
“Yeah, next he’ll be having us sweep the yard!”
Or derogatorily:
“I want you to go do that thing.”
“Sure, you want me sweep the yard when I’m done?”
Raking the forest
With the invention of leaf blowers, “sweeping the yard” is real! Or at least for literal yards …… I have no idea in your industry
