# A new slant to some old cliches **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 15, 2000, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771 "2000-03-15T06:49:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CanadianSue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@CanadianSue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanadianSue)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2000, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/1 "2000-03-15T06:49:00Z")
“Everything Comes In Threes” - Not true. In reality, everything comes in ones. Sometimes, when three “ones” come in a row, it seems like everything comes in threes. By the way, in medieval times, it was widely believed that everything came in twenty-sixes. They were wrong, too. It just took them longer to recognize the pattern. “You Can’t Take It With You (when you die)” - Well, that depends on what it is. If it’s your dark blue suit, you can certainly take it with you. In fact, not only can you take it with you, you can probably put some things in your pockets. “You Learn Something New Every Day” - Actually, you learn something old every day. Just because you’ve just learned it, doesn’t mean it’s new. Other people already knew it, Columbus is a good example of this. “The Sky’s The Limit” - Well, how can the sky be the limit? The sky never ends. What kind of a limit is that? The earth is the limit. You dig a hole and what do you keep getting? More earth. The earth is the limit. “You Get What You Pay For” - Clearly this is not true. Have you been shopping recently? Only a very naive person would believe that you get what you pay for. In point of fact, if you check your purchases carefully, you’ll find that you get whatever they feel like giving you. And if corporations get any more powerful, you soon might not even get that. “Tomorrow Is Another Day” - Not necessarily true. Today is another day. We have no idea what tomorrow is going to be. It might turn out to be another day, but we can’t be sure. If it happens, I’ll be the first to say so. But, you know what? By that time, it will be today again. “Nice Guys Finish Last” - Not true. Studies have shown that, on average, nice guys finish third in a field of six. Actually, short guys finish last. By the way, in medieval times, it was widely believed that nice guys finished twenty-sixth. You can see how limited those people were. “If You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen Them All” - Do we even have to talk about this one? This should be obvious. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen … one. If you’ve seen them all, _then_ you’ve seen them all. I don’t even understand how this one got started. “Those were the days” - No. Those were the nights! Think back. Weren’t the nights better? Days you had to work. Nights you went to parties, danced and drank. “Those were the nights!” “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” - What about when you eat at home? I don’t pay when I eat lunch at home - it’s FREE! Sometimes I’ll leave a tip, but basically, it’s a free lunch. Yes, I know we had to buy the food at the store. But as the Zen Buddhists say, ‘The Food Is Not the Lunch’. - “You pay your money and you take your chances” - I think what I said earlier still applies" You pay your money and you take whatever they jolly well give you. Actually, when you get right down to it, you pay your money and you lose your money. “Everybody has his price” - Not so. Would you believe there are millions of people who do not have their price? Thanks to a government mix-up, many people have their neighbors price. “They don’t make 'em like they used to” - Actually they do make 'em like they used to, they just don’t sell 'em anymore. They make 'em, and then they keep 'em. “Two wrongs don’t make a right” - Well, it just so happens that two wrongs do make a right. Not only that, but as the number of wrongs increases, the whole thing goes up exponentially. So that while two wrongs make one right, and four wrongs make two rights, it actually takes sixteen wrongs to make three rights, and 256 wrongs to make four rights. It seems to me that anyone who is stringing together 256 wrongs needs counseling, not mathematics. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another” - No, not always. Sometimes if it’s not one thing, not only is it not another, but it turns out to be something else entirely. “You can’t win them all” - Not true. Believe it or not, there is a man somewhere in Illinois who, so far, has won them all. But don’t get too excited; it has also been discovered that it is possible to lose them all. By the way, there is no record of anyone having tied them all. “Things have to get better, they can’t get any worse” - This is an example of truly faulty logic. Just because things can’t get any worse, is no reason to believe they have to get better. They might just stay the same. And, by the way, who says things can’t get any worse? For many people, things get worse and worse and worse and worse. “Nobody ever said that life was fair” - I specifically remember as I was growing up, at least twelve different people, telling me life was fair. One person put it this way; “Life, you will find, is fair.” Oddly enough, all twelve of those people died before the age of twenty-seven. “It takes two to Tango” - Sounds good, but simple reasoning will reveal that actually it takes only one to tango. It does take two to tango together, maybe. But one person is certainly capable of tangoing on his own. He just might look a little silly. “There’s a sucker born every minute, and two to take him” - This may have been true in the past, but now, if you adjust for the increased population base, birth control, and the so-called moral decline, not only are there five suckers born every minute, there are now fifty-three to take him. “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” - Why don’t we just ask Julius Caesar and John F. Kennedy about this one? ## “Life is short” - Sorry. Life is not short, it’s just that everything else lasts so long -mountains, rivers, stars, planets - life seems short. Actually life lasts just the right amount of time. Until you die. Death on the other hand…is very, very short We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another ---
**Author:** ![abderian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@abderian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abderian)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2000, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/2 "2000-03-15T13:26:00Z")
Here’s a couple I’ve always disputed: “More [fill in the blank] than you could shake a stick at.” - Now I can’t think of any one thing I couldn’t shake a stick at. Maybe I’m particularly gifted in the field of stick-shaking, but no matter how much of anything exists, I believe I could shake a stick at it. “What goes around comes around.” - Not true at all. Sometimes what goes around misses you entirely and hits elsewhere. Sometimes what goes around simply stops. Sometimes shit just happens. There’s my 2 cents. ---
**Author:** ![ReservoirDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@ReservoirDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReservoirDog)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2000, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/3 "2000-03-15T17:19:00Z")
George Carlin is hysterical! I saw him in concert a few years back in New York at some performing arts center or another. You know, one of those outdoor pavilion-type things. George was going through his list of “People I Could Do Without”, and of course, the language had been pretty rough the whole evening, which, if you know anything about Mr. Carlin at all, it is to be expected. Well, there was this older couple in front of us that was acting increasingly appalled as the show went on, and the only thing we could figure is that perhaps they had season tickets to the venue and didn’t know what they were getting into with this particular show. Anyway, one of the people George can do without is, “Men with lots of little pins in their hats.” Sure enough, the gentleman in front of me had tons of little pins in his fisherman-style hat. I guess that was the final straw because soon thereafter they got up and left. My friends and I laughed and laughed. Incidentally, you can find the complete list (in the original, more colorful language) in George Carlin’s book called **Brain Droppings**. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2000, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/4 "2000-03-15T23:21:00Z")
> [@](#): > > “Two wrongs don’t make a right” No, but three rights make a left! * * * TT “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” –James Thurber ---
**Author:** ![SingleDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@SingleDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleDad)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2000, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/5 "2000-03-16T06:00:00Z")
“Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain” - Actually, the gods gave up millenia ago, hence Pet Rocks, Lava Lamps and Jerry Springer. * * * Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain. ---
**Author:** ![Pooch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dbc845/32.png) [@Pooch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pooch)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2000, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/6 "2000-03-16T06:08:00Z")
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. I tested this once. I led a horse to water and menacingly told him to drink the fucking water. He did. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2000, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/7 "2000-03-16T12:36:00Z")
You can lead a horse to water, but it don’t make him a duck. ---
**Author:** ![TripleAnt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@TripleAnt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TripleAnt)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2000, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-slant-to-some-old-cliches/14771/8 "2000-03-17T06:16:00Z")
I totally suggest “Brain Droppings”, great book. ReservoirDog: Is Carlin good in concert? I’m seeing him in May in Denver, we have 5th row center seats. I can’t wait. * * * “I have a lot of good ideas, problem is most of them suck.” -George Carlin