BS: stupid sayings

Subject: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 10:06 AM

WW1 was the war to end all wars.
(It was a hopeful sentiment but wars only breed more wars)

All's fair in love and war
(purified nonsense)

Money can't buy happiness
(it can buy more options)

Don't cry over spilled milk
(?)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 10:52 AM

Have you seen the back of your neck?

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: meself
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 11:05 AM

What's stupid about the saying, Don't cry over spilt (as some of us would have it) milk?

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 11:46 AM

Some of these are probably the moral (or punch line) from things like Aesop's Fables.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 01:10 PM

I'll knock you into the middle of next week!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 01:12 PM

I love you to the moon and back.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 01:26 PM

WW1 was the war to end all wars.
(It was a hopeful sentiment but wars only breed more wars
quote
incorrect
it is people and governments the armaments industry and profit, it has also been the desire to grab other countries natural fuel resources., that has stared wars your comment is too simplistic
wars do not breed wars, they do however boost economies afterwards ,that is the nature of capitalism., they boost the aramaments industry they also boost economies by employing people on public works rebuilding the destruction of war.
JESUS WAS RIGHT OVERTURNING THE MONEYLENDERS TABLES AND THE ESTABLISHMENT CRUCIFIED HIM

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 01:33 PM

The war to end all wars was a phrase that was used as propaganda, it was a lot of things   including cunning scheming unscrupulous and Machiavellian, but not stupid

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 01:36 PM

a thrilling new quiz show

a tense new thriller

your favourite celebrities

lively political discussion

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 01:56 PM

wars do not breed wars,

It has been argued that the legacy of the Treaty of Versaille and WW1 reparations were a major factor in the rise of the Nazi Party, and thus a cause of WW2.

Getting back to the thread:-

"Nothing is impossible".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 02:12 PM

If I've said it once I've said it ten billion times: always avoid exaggeration.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 02:46 PM

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 02:47 PM

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: meself
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 03:24 PM

"All you need is love."

"You can achieve anything!"/"You can be whatever you want to be!"

"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid lyrics
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 08:25 PM

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 09:59 PM

If I can do it, you can do it.

Bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 04:17 AM

Either you like bacon or you're wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 05:20 AM

Either you like bacon or you're wrong.

I thought we were looking for stupid sayings!

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 05:25 AM

Yes, Doug, I did almost have second thoughts about that...

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 05:28 AM

You're a better man than I am, Donald Trump (I just made that one up...)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 07:38 AM

Well, I’m glad I’m not wrong for once…

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings never said
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 08:06 AM

no thanks I'm not Magyarország

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 12:50 PM

I suspect "Don't cry over spilt milk" might be only part of the original aphorism. Possible roundings-off include "Crying won't put it back in the bottle/churn", and "The cat won't lick it up for you --- he doesn't like salt".

Much depends on where the milk was spilt from. In the immortal words of Willy Rushton: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings .... and straight down the back of your suit."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: meself
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 01:18 PM

Does the saying, "Don't cry over spilt milk" really require more? I would have thought its meaning, implications, and ramifications are pretty straightforward.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 01:57 PM

Does it require more? Well there's no specification as to whether it's soya, oat, goat, skimmed, semi-skimmed or full-cream organic unhomogenised Jersey (they're in my order of increasing desirability, which indicates increasing potential for lachrymatory output), so yes, it isn't that simple! And don't get me started on spilt beer (unless it's American beer, in which case the crying will be of tears of joy).

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 02:34 PM

Fraud And Research Technology Sciences has a shorter name and is in charge of beer authenticity.

There are always exceptions to sayings. I suppose one might cry over spilled colostrum.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 07:56 PM

God created the world. Everything else was made in China.


Alcohol never solved anything, but neither did milk.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 07:59 PM

"Money changers" not, as some would have it,"money lenders."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 08:04 PM

Seen on a sign behind the bar in a pub on the Isle of Skye in 1974:

"Credit is available to customers over the age of 90 provided they are accompanied by both parents."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 09:00 PM

"In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash."

From the 1870s. At least.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 12:07 AM

Not stupid at all!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 03:55 AM

You must have been to the same pub as me, Lighter. That sign was also on the wall behind the bar, a large circle in the form of a US coin, with "In God we trust. The rest pay cash" round the margin. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 04:49 AM

Reasons for buying a lottery ticket:-

"... but it's a rollover!"


DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 01:08 PM

Where there's smoke there's fire.

Not necessarily. There might be volcanic ash, a power plant blowing off steam, or wet leaves merely smouldering. Of course, this is merely a metaphor, and in human affairs the "smoke" might be a bunch of lies.

False allegations of child abuse come to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 02:02 PM

Leeneia, isn’t it ‘There’s no smoke without fire’?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/there%27s%20no%20smoke%20without%20fire

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 03:20 PM

Different version of the saying.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 07:20 PM

Well I'll go to the foot of our stair...

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 07:34 PM

You're as daft as a brush.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 12:10 AM

Backwoodsman, all my life I've heard "Where there's smoke there's fire."
But of course there can be many variations as long as the sense is preserved.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 01:20 AM

Leeneia, it’s funny, innit? I’ve always heard “There’s no smoke without fire”! Two nations divided…yadda yadda! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 02:39 AM

When a bit annoyed or disappointed, my mother used to say, "Ho hum, pig's bum!" Unfortunately, I accidentally blurted this out one morning while among my 8yr old pupils. They roared with laughter and kept saying it themselves. I then invented a less rude version, "Oh dear, pig's ear!" in the hope they'd use that. But the 'pig's bum' one lived on in my classroom! (Mother was Irish, so it may have been an Irish expression)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 03:14 AM

My Irish granny, when in front of the kids, would euphemise "bloody 'ell!" Into "blood and stomach pills!"

Come to think of it, who was "bloody Nora!"...?

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 08:37 AM

She wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 11:23 AM

Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.
—Benjamin Franklin

Three things happen as you get older: your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two...
—Norman Wisdom

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 11:45 AM

Seems to me that 'stupid' is getting confused with 'amusing'.

Back to the thread:-

"It's more than my job's worth"

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 12:00 PM

I don't agree, Doug. If you could ask Mrs Steve, she will tell you (eyes a-rolling) that my very favourite jokes are the most stupid and childish ones. I think that a saying, or a joke, can be both stupid and amusing at the same time. Things like "Jimmy Edwards and Lulu both have moustaches, except Lulu..."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 02:19 PM

Sign in a diner.

"Pie like Mother used to make. $1.00."

under that:

"Pie like he says she made, $1.50"

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 04:07 PM

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law H.R. 619, a bill that required that the inscription “In God We Trust” appear on all paper and coin currency. It is less truthful than, In Trump, wee trust.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 04:58 PM

Just been irritated by this yet again, and on the Beeb at that: "rising to a crescendo". Note to self: buy a telly brick.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 05:13 PM

Ping-pong balls, not a telly brick, unless you're a wealthy man!

Yes, the use of English on the telly has definitely deteriated... (see what I did there?)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 05:58 AM

"The early bird catches the worm"

Stupid because it's the early worm that gets caught!

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 06:21 AM

I'll have two early birds over easy with bacon.

We have enough gun control. What we need is idiot control right left and center.

Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

Women may not hit harder, but they hit lower.

I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.

A TV can insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like click bait.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station...

If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea... does that mean that one enjoys it?

The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.


If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 06:29 AM

"The foolish man built his house upon the sand."

Try telling that to Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who built Bude Castle on shifting sand two hundred years ago, and it's still there in all its glory. He was an amazing bloke, well worth a wiki read if you've never come across him before. He invented the limelight, as well as the Bude Light, a replica of which exists in Trafalgar Square. Lots of other exciting exploits too!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 07:07 AM

Bud Light sucks.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 07:53 AM

Whatever is old is new again.
Like the Charleston Cha Cha disco twist twerking.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Feb 23 - 08:43 PM

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 06:21 AM

Even a dog knows if he was deliberately kicked.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 07:46 AM

He certainly knows what side his bread's buttered.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Gone but not forgotten (an entry in the "deaths" column of our local paper that was inserted two days after the person's death)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 08:22 AM

My dear departed mate Adam was from Glasgow and in response to many "Have you got..?" questions he would reply either

No, but I have a picture of Napoleon with a crew cut

or

No, but I have a sister in the Turkish navy with a black tit

I never found out why and I suppose I never will!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 09:54 AM

When I was little, if I bumped my head or had some other minor injury and was looking for sympathy, my mum would say:
       "It'll be a pigs foot in the morning".

It didn't help, but it was all you were going to get.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 10:00 AM

"And don't come crying to ME!" (me mum)

"Pull yer socks up, yer nose is bleeding" (me gran - never did quite get that one)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 05:31 AM

"It was never like that in my day"

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 05:39 AM

On seeing a bandy-legged chap oop north in my youth, "He couldn't stop a pig in an entry."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 05:42 AM

As pissed as a fart


(Huh?)


...or a rat....

...or a newt....

...or as arseholes....


???

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 05:50 AM

Heard in the greenhouses on Radcliffe parks department in the sixties, a disparaging remark made about the parks superintendent, who was regarded as, er, not exactly "a man's man":

"Trouble wi' 'im, 'e still thinks 'is dick's fer pissing out of..."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: G-Force
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 06:06 AM

"She ain't no better 'n she should be"

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 23 - 09:15 PM

God don't make no junk

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 09:38 AM

The foundation of English culture is politeness.

English food is unforgivably dreadful.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 05:10 PM

You can't teach an old dog new tricks

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 05:18 PM

I have never heard the saying quoted on 04 Mar 23 - 09:38 AM and when I Google them they have no hits. Did you make them up Donuel?

I suppose if you did they still qualify as stupid sayings. Much like "People making things up to score points in irrelevant arguments are knob ends" :-)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Mar 23 - 05:32 PM

How's about: "American food doesn't make American kids fat." Now that's what I CALL a stupid saying!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Mar 23 - 11:02 AM

Who said that? I see Fast food isn't, but not American.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Mar 23 - 06:21 PM

Bill Mahre said to Russell Brand "the religious culture of Britain is politeness".
(forget Henry 8th)

My parents were never fond of English food.
The etiology of stupid sayings is stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 11:20 AM

That last line is meaningless, so I suppose you could say it's on-topic.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 03:24 PM

Not what you would call well known sayings then. But, yea, someone did say them. I am sure you will understand my confusion. Never having known your parents or seen Bill Mahre.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 03:41 PM

Sayings full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The excess sputum of neurons. An ignorant gamete capable of genius with enough time.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 04:05 PM

Well, I'll go t'foot of our stairs

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 04:16 PM

Well f*uck*in' stroll on...

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 04:46 PM

I worked with a Geordie who used to say "I'm not surf***ingprised". Dunno if is common in Geordieland though

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 05:17 PM

A Raggytash one that he used once years ago and which I now use all the time: "Well bugger me sideways with a burnt chip."

(Once heard Stephen Fry doing a variant with a bent fish-hook)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 05:33 PM

When confronted with an unenviable task,

"I'd rather hack off the family jewels with a rusty machete"

Or

"I'd rather rip me top off and staple me tit to a beehive."

Or, when utterly gobsmacked,

"Well paint me privates with honey and bring on the dancing ants."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Mar 23 - 05:57 PM

The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist (or a mystic, an astrophysicist or a magic mushroom expert)

He's a few condoms short of an orgy

I looked into his eyes. The lights were on but there was nobody driving.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 12:23 PM

'History is written by the winners/victors.'

Pernicious tripe (and very very incorrect).

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 01:08 PM

It is rarely written by the losers, so you need to expand on your remarks. Why do you think it's nonsense?

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 01:22 PM

It's written by neutral observers quite often, and, these days, there's plenty of recorded evidence in the media. If Russia does defeat Ukraine, heaven forfend, it wouldn't be Russia writing the history, would it?

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 03:43 PM

This "history is written by the victors" is a pet peeve of mine, and I tried to debunk it earlier this week on the A.l. Lloyd Shanties thread, to wit:


"'History is written by the victors.'

"That proves that Jeff Davis and the Kaiser were both in the right.

"History, in fact, is literally written by professionally trained historians who aren't afraid to modify or change their conclusions in the light of new evidence. Their work is scrutinized by others. They don't always agree, either.

"Now that I've been told that the news is fake, science is fake, and history is fake, I guess the smart thing is to believe any goddamned thing I want.

Feels GOOOOD! :} "

**************************************

The idea is an old one:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html

But it's only true when the victors have a monopoly on writing and historians, a state of affairs that obviously held true when the vanquished were non-literate. The fact is that even non-literate societies have had spokespersons among the supposedly monolithic victors. For example, the notorious 1864 massacre of Native Americans at Sand Creek, Co., was investigated and condemned by the U.S. Congress, whose report contained the following words:

“It is difficult to believe that, being in the form of men and wearing the uniform of the United States, soldiers could commit or countenance the commission of such acts of cruelty or barbarity as are detailed in the testimony.”

(Not quite the stereotype of the victors, is it?)

Outside of Colorado and neighboring Kansas, the event was also widely denounced in the popular press.

The smug assertion that "history is written by the victors" implies that the "victors," whoever they may be, control the historians. Sometimes, as in Nazi Germany and the USSR, they do, but in democratic nations they don't. It also works as a pseudo-intellectual slogan meaning "I don't believe anything historians from the winning side have to say, because they're naturally liars, the voices of the losers have been silenced, and we'll never know the truth anyway. So don't confuse me with facts."

The saying also implies that the victors' historians solidly agree.

I mean, really. If the voices of the losers had been silenced, there wouldn't be neo-Communists in Russia and neo-Nazis in America.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 04:06 PM

Take a big uptick, Lighter.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 04:07 PM

No one is saying victims and/or losers don't write their stories, but alas, the accepted party line is usually that of the victors if they remain in power.

The fact that the South lost the Civil War yet their party line that it wasn't about slavery prevailed for over 100 years is an illustration of losers still controlling the story. But in general, it takes paradigm shifts to move some of the things we think we know about past events, which is the point when reasoned voices make the case often enough to change minds.

I'll read your link a bit later, just posting now because my thoughts were incomplete in my earlier response.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 06:08 PM

To maintain power the Republicans hope to set aside differences and unite with; the religious right, white supremacists, the KKK, Proud Boys, QAnon, Mexican cartels, the Russian Secret Service, Anti Zionists, Smersch, U.N.C.L.E., SPECTRE, Hair Club for Men, Old Nazis, Neo Nazis, the SSS Steve Shaw Syndicate, Russain Mob, Italian Mob, Westboro Babtist Church, Oath Keepers, Kill Jews for Jesus, Death Lovers R Us, and friends of Barney.

Stupid is what stupid does.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 07:02 PM

The saying /philosophy that I heard at the CIA and have railed against for 45 years...
"Truth is perception"

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Mar 23 - 10:41 PM

Its easier to rename a problem than solve it.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Neil D
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 06:46 AM

Any statement that begins "At the end of the day".

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 06:52 AM

Any statement that begins, “Basically…”.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 07:33 AM

I agree with those last two. But I do sort of like one or two that some find grating. I don't mind at all the gross overuse of "like" or "know what I mean?" Neither of those is used in order to sound pretentious. But if someone starts their statement with "I have to say..." I feel like butting in with, "No, you don't have to, not if you don't want to. That would be fine by me..."

I'm not sure about those people who start a sentence, often when trying to explain something, with "So..." but if you end your sentence with "...going forward" you should be incarcerated without heat or light for life, especially if you're a politician.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 07:42 AM

Its easier to rename a problem than solve it.

I wouldn't count that as a stupid statement..

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 08:38 AM

In reality...

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 09:40 AM

"Know what I mean" is pronounced "jomeen", and is how one pronounces a question mark; "innit" is a pronounced full stop, like. As Professor Higgins would say: "Garn."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 10:55 AM

Using the word "alternate" in any sense other than "first this, now that, now this again, now that again..." is utterly diabolical. The word is alternative. This lingovirus is so common now that dictionaries are accepting it as standard English. That's a crime, committed mostly by yanks. I blame the Monkees.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Mar 23 - 03:03 PM

There are a bunch of Orwellian weasel words of bad intent that soil language by corrupting meaning. Turning equality into equity is one of them. Illegal aliens, death tax, deep state, fake news etc.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 23 - 07:11 AM

100! Alternate truth is a fascinating fascist favorite.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 Mar 23 - 06:31 PM

In my book, "alternate", at least in America, does overlap with "alternative" in one sense, viz second choice, in case the first is not available: "alternate route", "delegates and alternates". As a general substitute for "alternative" it is (I agree) semiliterate.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Mar 23 - 06:50 PM

It's a fight lost, a bit like disinterested/uninterested. With "practice," the yanks have it right. Everything is "practice," and why not. But we have "practice" and "practise." Huge numbers of Brits get them wrong. So why bloody bother. If confusion is the order of the day, take the simple path. But I do think that we should discriminate between making things easier for everyone and degradation...

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Mar 23 - 09:11 PM

ethnic purity.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Mar 23 - 03:10 AM

Take Back Control.
Get Brexit Done.
Stop The Boats.
Vote Conservative.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Mar 23 - 10:26 AM

Labour isn't working (unemployment rocketed when they got in)

Back to basics

Vote for change

Strong and stable

New Labour, new danger (sorry, one word too many...)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid savings
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Mar 23 - 03:06 PM

Crypto is stupid savings

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Mar 23 - 04:15 PM

I thought he was Superman's dog

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 06:04 AM

That was Crypton Knight............

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 06:09 AM

We seem to have filtered sayings, leaving mostly the "Rule of Three" which also follows its own rule rather neatly.

education, education, education

read my lips

Northern Island Protocol

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 07:20 AM

Would that be Greenland or Baffin Island? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 07:53 AM

War on terror

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 08:39 AM

Just found on a webpage:

"I am always amazed, but never surprised, when . . ."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 11:21 AM

Hang Mike Pense

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 01:20 PM

Shock and awe.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 04:41 PM

Aw shucks

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 05:32 PM

I reminded myself when I posted "war on terror," that twenty years ago today Robin Cook made his historic speech in the Commons opposing the horrible descent into the grossly dishonest invasion of Iraq. He was no leftie but he had the kind of principles that were totally alien to Bush and Blair. He died just two years later, and who knows how UK politics might have been different (for the better) had he lived.

There were plenty of stupid sayings flying around at the time, but, this end, the stupidest and most dishonest one was the one in which Blair said that Saddam had "active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Mar 23 - 07:52 PM

'High tech terrorist' This is what Biden and others call Julian Assange as he faces extradition and a 177 year sentence because he used the internet to publish actual Iraq war videos. Why aren't Insurrectionists
who used the internet High Tech Terrorists?

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Mar 23 - 08:56 AM

Hands. Face. Space.

Brexit means brexit.

Education education education.

No. No. No.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Gda Music
Date: 19 Mar 23 - 11:03 AM

thank you very much indeed!

GJ

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 09:14 AM

lethal AID

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Mar 23 - 08:45 PM

Build back better

Yes we can

Keep Britain tidy

Veni vidi vici

God bless America

One more heave

Oven-ready deal

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 04:19 AM

vidi vici veni - or should that be on the joke page?

have a nice day

and as Stephen Fry answered (allegedly)..... I have other plans!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Mar 23 - 05:24 AM

good clean filth

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: mayomick
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 04:37 PM

".....is the poor man's......" . As in "whelks are the poor man's oysters "

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 04:50 PM

Musha ring dumma do dumma da,
whack for the daddy 'ol,
whack for the daddy 'ol,
there's whiskey in the jar.

(Well it isn't stupid when you're singing it!)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Mar 23 - 05:40 PM

Why is the current asteroid being described as The size of 33 armadilloes? When I looked farther it said 9-banded ones tail-to-snout.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Mar 23 - 07:17 AM

Guns don't kill people.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Mar 23 - 09:26 AM

I used to have a tshirt that said, over a detail of sistine-chapel god pointing at Adam:

Gods don't kill people. People with gods kill people.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Bob Hitchcock
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 02:47 PM

Some of my favorite sayings:-

      That guy is as sharp as a sack full of wet mice.

       I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 02:52 PM

"Speed kills!"

No, it's the sudden stop that does all the damage.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 05:27 PM

You'd lose yer balls if they weren't in a bag.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 23 - 05:30 PM

Or, when you're feeling a little put on, "Shove a brush up me arse an' I'll sweep bloody floor while I'm at it..."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 05:45 AM

"It's a nice pub is that, but the men's bogs are mingin'..."

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 06:28 AM

He's OK but his shit stinks

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 06:54 AM

We used to use that a lot as an insult at Thornleigh, as in "You're OK you, but your shit stinks. Nothing personal..." Bloody Catholics... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 07:22 AM

More fun than a barrelful of monkeys

As mad as a box of frogs

Two Salfordian euphemisms:

As happy as pigs in Shudehill

Blood and stomach pills!

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 07:37 AM

“He looks like a bag o’shit tied up ugly” (my Briggensian gran’maw’s saying, very appropriate with regard to our last PM but one).

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 08:21 AM

.... our last PM but one

Not wanting to cause thread drift, but - I knew you meant Boris but I had had to stop for a moment to work out why it was "last but one". It shows what an impact Liz Truss had.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 03 Apr 23 - 08:55 AM

She, and her wanker of a Chancellor, certainly had an effect on my pension fund investments, Doug! :-(

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Gda Music
Date: 05 Apr 23 - 07:33 AM

Get in the hole!

GJ

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Bob Hitchcock
Date: 05 Apr 23 - 01:59 PM

My Uncle Fred talking about Oldham Athletic F.C.

"If they were playing in t'street I'd draw curtains"

a wise man I think.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Apr 23 - 03:06 PM

Wasn't that Shankly (aka God) commenting on Everton? He also said that there were two great teams on Merseyside: Liverpool and Liverpool reserves...

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Apr 23 - 03:12 PM

Mind you, Uncle Fred was probably right. Latics never were much to write 'ome about.

Steve (one-time massive Burnley fan, me an' Alastair Campbell...)

I also had an Uncle Fred, by the way. He was lovely man but he dropped dead on Christmas Eve 1964.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Bob Hitchcock
Date: 05 Apr 23 - 09:10 PM

Steve, I will bow to your better knowledge about the origin of the quote. Not unlike Uncle Fred to borrow a good line. As a Brighton and Hove Albion fan for the past 60 years I have only a fleeting remembrance of Bill Shankly as Brighton was wallowing in the lower regions of the football league at the time. But hey times have changed now.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 23 - 05:20 PM

As I don't have the timeline, Bob, I have to concede the possibility that Shanks (aka God) nicked the line from your Uncle Fred... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: G-Force
Date: 10 Apr 23 - 05:11 AM

'Breathe in', as said by people trying to squeeze past each other. I've always thought that breathing in makes you bigger. If you want to take up less space, breathe out.

Subject: RE: BS: stupid sayings
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Apr 23 - 08:29 AM

There is nothing we can do.