I LOVE these. Funnier the longer I think about them. Almost serious or useful then just completely out of left field.
A bird in the hand is worth two with one stone.
My favorite is, “Why don’t you make like a tree and go fuck yourself?”
I’m gonna OD on nostalgia from this
This one’s really good since some trees can self-pollinate.
Is that why some family trees are so linear?
Does the pope shit in the woods?
My all time favorite. Sometimes I go with “is a bear Catholic?”
Only if the Bear is Catholic
I use this far too often
I said this at the root of the thread, but since we are talking about variations of this malaphor, I use:
Does a bear shit in the pope’s hat?
And if no one hears it happening, is he Catholic?
“I don’t know, CJ! I keep telling you I’m not Catholic!”
What’s the pope part supposed to say?
I’ve heard it as “Is the pope catholic?”
Does the pope wear a funny hat? Does a bear shit in the woods?
is the pope a bear?
When in the woods alone, would you rather run into a pope or a bear?
Women would choose a bear, normally. I thought we went through this a year or so ago.
And a bear in a funny hat?! How could you not want a hug?!
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“This is a tough nut to swallow”
“It’s not the end of the day”
For the first one, my ex used to say that to me all the time.
You need to eat more pineapple
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Bob’s your oyster
Kill two cats with one bag
Bring out your dead!
But I feel fine… I wanna go for a walk.
You can beat a dead horse but you can’t make it drink.
You can lead a racehorse to water but you shouldn’t piss in its mouth
That’s a very apt lesson
When life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.
That’s some Groucho Marx style shit.
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
An old friend always said “time flies like fruit flies like a banana.”
I’ve always preferred this version because of the flow, and because it makes you think a little more before it clicks.
You just made me dylexic I read melons, then when i read dyslexic i go back to read again and i read lemons but wait, wasn’t it melons? So I read again and it’s melons 😭
I guess I spawned a cognitohazard xD
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Don’t count your chickens before you put them all in one basket
But what if I paid for the 10-piece meal?
I like how this bucket of chicken is casually thrusting for no reason.
Well duh’… Then someone else has put them in the basket already, so you’re good
Put two birds in one basket?
First you get the birds stoned.
From the Buffy-verse.
Harmony, the dumbest vampire.
“You’re preaching to the horse’s mouth.”
“I don’t like a loose cannon. They rock the boat.”
Except that actually makes sense.
On a wooden battleship the cannons were literally tied in place so when the recoiled after being fired they would not smash into the gun crew on the other side of the ship. If a cannon broke its restraints it could maim the crew and break through the hull.
The very next line is “loose cannon, rock the boat – is that a mixed metaphor? Boats did have cannons. And if one got loose, it would cause the boat to rock…”
You opened this can of worms, now lie in it
I resent, and resemble, this
Bojack Hosreman had a couple of good ones. My favorite was: “Fool me once, shame on you, but teach a man to fool me, and I’ll be fooled for the rest of my life!”
The road to hell is paved with hand-baskets.
Oh, we have those in German too:
1st Idiom: Life is no pony farm
2nd Idiom: Life is no sugar-licking.Both meaning life isn’t easy.
Combines into: Life is no pony-licking
One hand washes the other.
One crow doesn’t pick the others eye.The former meaning: “Quid pro Quo” and the latter: “One scoundrel doesn’t tell on the other.”
Combines into: One crow washes the other.
Like an elephant in the china shop. (The proverbial bull in the china shop)
Who’s sitting in a glasshouse shouldn’t throw stones. (If you are yourself vulnerable to / guilty of the allegation, don’t throw the proverbial first stone)Combines into: Who’s sitting in a china shop shouldn’t throw elephants.
Who digs a pit for another will fall in themself. (Meaning is obvious)
Who’s sitting in a glasshouse shouldn’t throw stones. (As above)Combine into: Who’s sitting in a glasshouse will fall in themself.
Had a pig. (That was lucky)
Sponge over it. (Erase it / it’s okay / forget it)Combine into: Pig over it.
Note: in German sponge (Schwamm) and pig (Schwein) begin with the same syllables.
Not seeing the forest for the trees. (as in English)
Standing like the ox in front of a mountain. (being baffled or at a loss)Combine into: Standing like the ox in front of a tree.
Or: Not seeing the ox for the mountains.
Hitting two flies with one swatter. (As in two birds, one stone)
Morphs into: Hitting two swatters with one fly.
Better the sparrow in your hand than the pigeon on the roof. (Be content with what you have in your hand instead of going for the bigger thing that’s harder to get.)
Morphs into: Better the mute (woman) in bed than the deaf (woman) on the roof.
Note: “Die Taube” is feminine and can mean both “the pidgeon” and “the deaf”. (dove, deaf, you can see the connection in English still)
Better the sparrow in your hand than the pidgeon on the roof. (As above)
Shooting cannons at sparrows. (Overreacting)Combine into: Shooting pidgeons at sparrows.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.”
“People who live in glass houses can count their chickens in the rain.”
“We’ll cross that water when it’s under the bridge.”
“We’ll cross that water when it’s under the bridge.”
That is by far the laziest take on any variation on that saying I’ve heard so far. 10/10, fuckin’ love it. Just a straight up “we’ll do nothing until the problem comes to us”.
Adding this one to the noggin file.
The actual form we use at work is “kick the can down the road” usually to make people feel bad about a lazy decision: “Yeah, you can kick that can down the road now, but it’s not going away until you deal with it.”
One I don’t think I’ve heard yet is “that can of worms is already open, if you kick it dwn the road it will only be a bigger mess later…”
