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[hipbabboom]

Is it "Nip it in the bud" or "Nip it in the butt"?

Is it "Make ends meat" or "Make ends meet"?

Is it "Find a happy median" or "Find a happy medium"?

 

[caesar]

Is it "Nip it in the bud" or "Nip it in the butt"?

Is it "Make ends meat" or "Make ends meet"?

Is it "Find a happy median" or "Find a happy medium"?

Why would it be make ends meat?

 

[tensuke]

Why would it be make ends meat?

ass to ass

 

[Crayolan]

Why would it be make ends meat?

...
It's not? I thought "ends meat" was the very minimum amount of cash you needed to live. So making ends meat would be making the bare minimum.

 

[VindicatorZ]

Did you ever say it out loud like that? I always love that moment when you're about to say a word in conversation and you suddenly realize you've only ever read the word and this is the first time you've said it aloud. You're either gonna sound smart or stupid.





There's a lot of words like this that I pronounce incorrectly in my mind when I'm writing. Anti-gone, Wed-nesday, Connect-icutt.

This always happens when meeting somebody who likes old school Final Fantasy. Everybody pronounces all the names from FF4 through FF9 all fucked up.

 

[Snot Rocket]

Is it "Nip it in the bud" or "Nip it in the butt"?

Is it "Make ends meat" or "Make ends meet"?

Is it "Find a happy median" or "Find a happy medium"?

A - An allegory about pruning roses
B
B

 

[Arment]

...
It's not? I thought "ends meat" was the very minimum amount of cash you needed to live. So making ends meat would be making the bare minimum.

I love me some end meat, the best meat there is.

Spoiler

You're making the ends "meet" together, but barely.

 

[Crayolan]

I love me some end meat, the best meat there is.

Spoiler

You're making the ends "meet" together, but barely.

Well that makes sense. Now I feel like a dumbass.

 

[Log4Girlz]

When I was a kid I thought it was doggie dog world (before any rap songs) and not dog eat dog world.

 

[gosox333]

Ahem

I don't really know how much of that is Ricky just being stupid rather than idiom misuse, but it's what I immediately thought of when I saw the thread title.

 

[Arment]

Well that makes sense. Now I feel like a dumbass.

I remember hearing it in The Flintstones movie and thinking that they were surviving off really bad meat that only poor people could afford.

 

[Kenshin001]

Not so much saying them wrong but for most of my life I thought lucked out meant having bad luck ie. out of luck. Saying that, I don't think I ever used the phrase.

Also to my chagrin I only just found out hegemony is pronounced hejemony. It's a word I've seen written hundreds of times but never used and always assumed it had a hard g. A coworker used it the other day and I was going to call him out on pronouncing it wrong. Lucky I didn't.

 

[Johnlenham]

this is almost a recreation of the friends scene

'It's a moo point'
'It's like a cows opinion, it doesn't matter, it's moo'

Chandler "It's hard to argue with that"

Hahaha

 

[B For Bendetta]

People not realizing it is "nip it in the bud" is a huge pet peeve

 

[MIMIC]

I used to think Prima Donna was pre-Madonna. It even made sense, too.

I did, too. xD

 

[Log4Girlz]

People not realizing it is "nip it in the bud" is a huge pet peeve

I hate people who say its a mute point and it doesn't pass mustard.

 

[Trent Strong]

"Deep down the rabbit hold"

I always though it was hole, not hold.

An obscure reference to the car hole - car hold Simpsons debate? Whoa if so.

 

[MIMIC]

Oh yeah....I used to think "dog eat dog world" was "doggy dog world"

edit: beaten xD

 

[Phire Phox]

I used to think Prima Donna was pre-Madonna. It even made sense, too.

This

 

[Enkidu]

Also to my chagrin I only just found out hegemony is pronounced hejemony. It's a word I've seen written hundreds of times but never used and always assumed it had a hard g. A coworker used it the other day and I was going to call him out on pronouncing it wrong. Lucky I didn't.

I believe hegemony can be pronounced several different ways, so your old hard g pronunciation might still be correct.

 

[MoG EclipsE]

I thought "wind chill temperature" was "windshield temperature."

LOL. I always thought the same haha

 

[Timedog]

Thinking harder about it, I think I really do like "deep-seeded" better. I think I'm just gonna use that and NEOGAF (Not Even Otherwise Give A Fuck) about what anyone says because of my status as an artest.

 

[xandaca]

Is it a car hole or a car hold?

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

It wasn't until a couple years ago I figured out the national anthem said "dawns early light" not "donserly light". Just thought it was some old adjective from around the time.

My daughter was doing a legislative internship and heard one of the Representatives say "threw a wrench into it" she had never heard the saying, so asked me if it was "retch (to vomit) or wench" I jokingly told her they were interchangeable and to use either one.

A few weeks later she texted me and told me someone had corrected her and the proper word was "wrench". She had been using the saying all the time and this was the first person to correct her.

She didn't get mad, she knew I had got her good. We still laugh about it once in awhile. No idea how she thought the saying worked with vomit or a prostitute though.

 

[Timedog]

I hate people who say its a mute point and it doesn't pass mustard.

Not a whole lot passes mustard, bro.

 

[happypup]

There is no such thing as an incorrect idiom. The whole point of idiomatic language is the words together mean something different than the literal definitions of the words. Buck Naked is just as valid as butt naked or buck'd nekkid. Language isn't about the rules, the rules are only necessary in so far as they help the accurate transmission of an idea. As long as the idea you are portraying is understood the words you choose as a vector for those ideas are unimportant.

Keep saying idioms wrong because idioms are supposed to be wrong.

 

[Tesseract]

bit off more than pikachu

 

[MattKeil]

There is no such thing as an incorrect idiom. The whole point of idiomatic language is the words together mean something different than the literal definitions of the words. Buck Naked is just as valid as butt naked or buck'd nekkid. Language isn't about the rules, the rules are only necessary in so far as they help the accurate transmission of an idea. As long as the idea you are portraying is understood the words you choose as a vector for those ideas are unimportant.

Keep saying idioms wrong because idioms are supposed to be wrong.

No, keep saying idioms correctly because words mean things. This "as long as you're understood it's all okay!" hippie crap is why we have a guy calling the state "Road Island" in another thread right now.

 

[Log4Girlz]

There is no such thing as an incorrect idiom. The whole point of idiomatic language is the words together mean something different than the literal definitions of the words. Buck Naked is just as valid as butt naked or buck'd nekkid. Language isn't about the rules, the rules are only necessary in so far as they help the accurate transmission of an idea. As long as the idea you are portraying is understood the words you choose as a vector for those ideas are unimportant.

Keep saying idioms wrong because idioms are supposed to be wrong.

I could care less

 

[Nugg]

I could care less

Well played

 

[NekoFever]

Quite a lot of these - "nip it in the butt", "know it by hard", "deep seeded" - only make sense because you American weirdos pronounce T and D the same. Wouldn't happen in a civilised country.

Now get off my lawn.

 

[Celestial Mortal]

For me it was: "Out of the frying pan and into the freezer" as opposed to the correct one: "Out of the frying pan and into the fire"

This was because I heard this phrase the first time when playing FFX and heard Tidus say it. Only recently I came to know that it was 'fire' instead of 'freezer'

 

[Byronic Hero]

Until like last year, I thought "for all intents and purposes" was "for all intensive purposes".

I blame people not enunciating.

 

[notBald]

For me it was: "Out of the frying pan and into the freezer" as opposed to the correct one: "Out of the frying pan and into the fire"

That makes sense. If you're in the frying pan you'd happily jump into a freezer, but it's not a good place to be either.

 

[Grakl]

The reasonings behind saying the idioms incorrectly are great.

 

[Chuckie]

I thought "wind chill temperature" was "windshield temperature."

Holy shit. You just blew my mind. I always wondered why the English called it windshield temperature haha.

A while ago I found out 'Blood is thicker than water' actually used to mean the opposite of what it means now (The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb)

 

[Cels]

i think most of these errors come from hearing things spoken but never reading them. so basically people who are poorly read suffer from these problems. a big one i see here on gaf is yay or nay instad of yea or nay. yea and yay sound the same so this error is understandable, although again it seems to be a symptom of being poorly read, or maybe a failure to pay attention in high school civics.

another thing, it is not an idiom but on the internet you see should of, would of, etc a lot, because they sound like should've, would've. it is an error only a native speaker would make. the esl learner would say wtf does "of" coming after would or should even mean?

 

[youngwerther]

For me it was: "Out of the frying pan and into the freezer" as opposed to the correct one: "Out of the frying pan and into the fire"

This was because I heard this phrase the first time when playing FFX and heard Tidus say it. Only recently I came to know that it was 'fire' instead of 'freezer'

I think it's supposed to be out of the frying pan and into the oven

 

[Grakl]

I think it's supposed to be out of the frying pan and into the oven

Lol

 

[Busty]

Half of GAF should come in here with the incorrect "could care less" and "for all intensive purposes."

I'm waiting. I literally have to see at least 62,000 responses with those. Half of GAF. You're on the clock.

Yes, yes and thrice yes.

If you were decide to run for some kind of position in public office I would like to help you campaign at a grass roots level.

 

[VanquishUK]

This thread is pretty funny.

 

[theJohann]

There is no such thing as an incorrect idiom. The whole point of idiomatic language is the words together mean something different than the literal definitions of the words. Buck Naked is just as valid as butt naked or buck'd nekkid. Language isn't about the rules, the rules are only necessary in so far as they help the accurate transmission of an idea. As long as the idea you are portraying is understood the words you choose as a vector for those ideas are unimportant.

Keep saying idioms wrong because idioms are supposed to be wrong.

What a ridiculous statement to make.

 

[Mr_Elysia]

I used to think it was "deep-seeded", until Cyan corrected me. To my defense I think deep-seeded works equally as well in the exact same context.

I absolutely agree with you and will accept both in this rare instance.

 

[happypup]

No, keep saying idioms correctly because words mean things. This "as long as you're understood it's all okay!" hippie crap is why we have a guy calling the state "Road Island" in another thread right now.

Of course words mean things, but idioms by their very definition are phrases that mean something different then the sum of the words they use. Road Island is wrong plain and simple. Any word that has a very strict and specific meaning should be used for that meaning. I could care less is just as valid as I couldn't care less, because either way the message is understood to be I don't care.

Language is a code for ideas. If the sender and receiver both understand the code than the word vector is valid. People often use words and phrases when they don't know the literal meaning but because of our innate ability to decipher meaning (especially when young) it doesn't matter that much if you don't know the meaning of every word in a phrase. In writing the rules are different because we don't have non-verbal cues and inflection to help derive meaning, but the same principle applies.

Language is a dynamic idea vector that follows Bayesian rules in accordance to signaling game dynamics. The rules that form as a result of the pooled, semi-pooled, and un-pooled equilibriums as a result of the signaling game are important and should be followed, those that are created and enforced by proper grammar snobs should be ignored.

 

[ChaChaChaChia]

I accidentally called a battering ram a battling ram the other day. When I thought about it, that way could make sense, too.

I had a co-worker say country pumpkin instead of bumpkin. She also said window seal for windowsill.

 

[hipbabboom]

Is it "I fuck with" or "I futz with"?

 

[bcl0328]

i always thought lactose intolerant was lactose and tolerant.

 

[samus i am]

I hate people who say its a mute point and it doesn't pass mustard.

Looks like I just learned the phrase is "it doesn't pass muster". I had no idea until just now.

 

[SeaOfMadness]

Until like last year, I thought "for all intents and purposes" was "for all intensive purposes".

I blame people not enunciating.

god, this one really bugs me when I hear someone use it. Wtf is an "intensive" purpose anyway?

another one I hate is when people say "acrossed" instead of across.

 

[John Rabbit]

Is it "I fuck with" or "I futz with"?

this isn't an idiom?