unoaman

All of us learned, and probably are still learning "familiar Phrases", oftentimes quaint, or colloquial sayings. To me, and I think most people they reduce a line of thought to a few simple, and familiar words.

An example would be "caught red handed". We all know what that implys, without actually knowing the details of the activity.

Some, such as the one above are nationwide, perhaps world wide in terms of use, but surely some are particular to a given country, or even to a region.

That said, tell us your favorite, or perhaps just most familiar phrase; a word or two about origin or usage would also be nice.

WildZero

My favorite: take away someone's birthday.

As in: "What is he going to do, take away my birthday?"

Usage is kind of sarcastic...it means that that the "taker" is powerless to do anything at all.

No idea about the origin, I used to work for a guy who used it a lot. It stuck with me for some reason. I was in the northeastern US at the time.

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Eugeni

Here's two familiar phrases I learned in Barcelona when I had some classmate from London.

DBG: it's kind of slang and humorous too and stands for Don't Be Gay. You can also say D-fucking-BG!!

You will get that: we always said this expression to convey something like "such things do happen".

OFKU0

"Fucking the dog"-- F-U-C-K-I-N-G T-H-E D-O-G... Someone who does nothing work related in their work place.

Got that from a middle school spelling bee off of PBS pertaining to ' lazy or insubordinate' people in the category,..'Workplace.' No really.

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" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

Shpoop

i like "caught between a rock and a hard place"

no idea the origin, and i bet u all know the meaning: no good options

its kinda funny to me, dont know why

unoaman

One my favorites, when I just absolutely can't believe something has happened is WELL, FUCK ME RUNNING. Have no idea where it came from, but kinds sums up the feeling.

tropple

Fucking "A" ditty-bop.

Absolute concurrence with someone's previous statement or action. Something we said in the Navy ;-)

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Bamrak

After spending 10 minutes laughing over the whole fucking the dog thing, I've got to throw one in..


My Boss is getting on in years and is very fond of saying "sometime before I die people!"

I'll follow up with more as I can remember them..

crackpot

Well, this is not "familiar" to anyone but myself and a couple of my friends, but if I may...

<i><b>I'm canary-faggoted</b></i>, meaning, I'm speechless.

The three of us were out and about with a fourth dude, an aquaintance of ours. He ran into someone with whom he didn't get along, and a verbal altercation began.
At one point, he was clearly looking for a sharp comeback, and to everyone's amazement, he said: <i>"Oh yeah? Canary faggot"</i>. Now the other guy was wearing a yellow t-shirt, so it made a bit of sense in that respect...
But we were on the ground laughing our asses to shreds at how lame a retort that was. I mean, screaming, crying laughter (we were a tad drunk, mind you).
So in the end, he is not friendly with us anymore, and when we are at a loss for words, we say <i>"I'm canary-faggoted"</i>.

Apologies for the longish story.

mike059

I prefer the term "dicking the dog..." works better for me

RainbowBright

Has anyone else noticed the way fuck can be used in place of just about any type of word

as a verb: he's fucking it up
as a noun: what the fuck is that?
as an adjective: she's fucking crazy

triad

I'm pretty sure its some reference to skilla and karibtus (spelling?) of Homer's "The Oddessy" but I could be wrong

Willravel

Probably right about rock and the hard place, triad.
"About as innocent as a Nun doing pressups in a Cucumber field."
Heh.