BS: Fossilised phrases

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: Genie
Date: 29 Aug 11 - 02:32 AM

How about referring to someone/something as a "carbon copy" of someone/something else?

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 08:02 PM

Drive a coach and four through the law... (yawn) The legal profession is full of such anachronisms.
A face like the back of a bus... now you won't understand that until you go to a well- stocked transport museum, and actually see the back of a really old bus.
Avoid cliches like the plague.

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 07:05 PM

"Willy nilly" - the slightly corrupt transliteration of the Latin "volens nolens".

"Blighty touch"

"Willy" - again from the Latin "Membrum virile"

"Mad as a hatter" - how long since top hat makers used mercury?

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: GUEST,Allen In Oz
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 06:22 PM

" Mad as a two bob watch "

AD

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 05:11 PM

How long is it since you had to spend a penny?

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: EBarnacle
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 04:48 PM

Rule if thumb defines the legal width a man could use to beat his wife or child up into the 19th century.

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 04:36 PM

Do millers still feel the ground-grain between finger and thumb, before making adjustments, as in "rule of thumb"?

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: Gurney
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 04:23 PM

'As the crow flies..' Do they really fly like a pigeon?

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 12:47 PM

..?..from first carriage to first cab off the rank, MtheGM.

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 10:50 AM

Good responses all, for which thanks ~~ except I can't see where Hobson's Choice, interesting a phrase as it is historically ~~ an antomomasiac eponym-metaphor based on the early C17 Cambridge University carrier's practice in his horse-hiring sideline of only offering any hirer the horse in the nearest stall to the entrance ~~ fits into the subject of the thread, WAV. And 'wireless' perhaps rather a somewhat obsolete synonym of 'radio' than a fossilised survival of a superseded technology: even when digital, radios are still wire-less in that sense, surely?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 09:33 AM

I've still got a chain.

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: johncharles
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 08:23 AM

I listen to my "wireless" every morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: JennieG
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 08:01 AM

Someone who goes on and on about a subject is said to be "like a cracked record"....."like a cracked CD" isn't the same!

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: Dead Horse
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 07:49 AM

I still 'Pull the chain' after a visit to the loo.

Subject: RE: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 06:56 AM

"Hobson's Choice" - http://walkaboutsverse.webs.com/#54

Subject: BS: Fossilised phrases
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 11 - 05:46 AM

Phrases and locutions often become fossilised.

Football reporters have talked of 'hitting the woodwork' when a shot rebounds off the goalpost or crossbar for over 100 years; and tv sports commentators still employ the cliché, even though the goals have not been made of wood but of tubular metal for — how long? 50 years?

Many people still refer to entering the number when making a phone call as 'dialling', even though digital keyboards have replaced dials on phones for at least the past 30 years. Surely numbers are 'punched' these days, rather than 'dialled'? {Fess up: which do you say? FYI, my recent BT Phone Book still refers to "your dialling needs"!, although 'call' has replaced 'dial' in most instructions!}

Any other such pertinacious obsolete linguistic survivals that you have observed?

~Michael~