No matter what language we're speaking, there's always some of those sayings where we scratch our head and wonder what that means or where it even came from. Here's a list of my personal favorites that make no sense.
1. "Don't drink the water."
Some people will blurt this out whenever pregnancy is the topic. The saying actually came from an old wives' tale that tells pregnant women not to drink tap water because it could potentially harm the baby. Whether this is true or not has yet to be discovered. I have discovered that this quote has no common sense.
2. "I like to reminisce with people I don't know."
This one sounds a little mysterious, but in reality, it's a quote from comedian and film producer Steven Wright. Personally, I can't figure out if this guy is feeling really lonely or if there's a deeper meaning here. Either way, let's just reminisce with people we actually know.
3. "The cigarette does the smoking, you're just the sucker."
A quote from anonymous, this saying is used to convince people to stop smoking or to never start in the first place. However, it just doesn't make sense to say this because if you have a lit cigarette in your mouth and you are inhaling the smoke, you are consciously smoking. Fact: checked.
4. "No use crying over spilled milk."
Who spilled their milk and why are they crying? According to The Free Dictionary, this quote is parallel to a proverb which says, "Do not be upset about making a mistake, since you cannot change that now." Why can't we just stick with that phrase, which says what it really means?
5. "It's darkest just before the dawn."
Yes, this is supposed to be an uplifting thing to say to people in bad situations, but this is just not true at all. It's been proven that the darkest part of the night is midnight, and if dawn is near, it's only going to get lighter in the sky due to the curvature of the earth and its orbit around the sun. Science, guys.
6. "The proof is in the pudding."
Um, what am I eating? Apparently, this phrase is a shortened version of the original phrase, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," meaning that you have to eat the pudding to know what was used to make it. If it were me, I would just look at the nutritional information.
7. "I could care less."
This is one that annoys a lot of people -- the real phrase is, "I couldn't care less," which is simple to understand. What I can't understand is how the "couldn't" was reduced to "could," which changed the entire meaning of the phrase to the opposite of what it means. Grammar, people!
8. "Rule of thumb."
While this is said very commonly, few people seem to notice that this phrase doesn't make any literal sense. According to research done on the origin of the phrase, some history and linguistics scholars believe that the quote originated from carpenters who used their thumb as a replacement for a ruler because the tip of the human thumb is typically about one inch long.
9. "Dead ringer."
A "dead ringer" for someone means that someone looks or acts exactly like someone else. But where on earth could it have come from? Well, evidence points to horses being the answer. Sometimes a racing horse would be replaced by a better, identical horse to cheat on bets, and the cheater's horse would be called a "ringer." However, there's no telling how "dead" came to be connected. I'm not sure I want to know.
10. "Needless to say."
I know, it means that whatever follows "needless to say" is unnecessary or should be left unsaid. Well, if you really thought that it shouldn't be said, wouldn't you leave it unsaid? People say unnecessary stuff all the time and don't feel the need to put a "needless to say" before it.
