# Common English phrases that, when you really think about it, don't make sense **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 28, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080 "2011-10-28T15:35:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/1 "2011-10-28T15:35:55Z")
I am prompted to this thread by one I just used: “turns out”. We all know what it means: “it became apparent” or “it was revealed”. It refers to something unknown which became known. I just used it to say that I was taking Wellbutrin to stop smoking years ago and discovered that I was allergic, so I said “turns out I am allergic”. How in the world did “turns out” come to mean that? I’m sure it got there through some logical morphing, but from 2011 English, I can’t see it. And while I can’t think of any other such phrases right this second, I know the language is brimming wiht them, phrases that we all understand perfectly because they are long embedded in the language, but when you take them apart and examine the definitions of the individual words, it is utterly baffling how they came to mean what we all accept them to mean now. Can anyone think of others? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/2 "2011-10-28T15:49:15Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > How in the world did “turns out” come to mean that? I’m sure it got there through some logical morphing, but from 2011 English, I can’t see it. No, I can’t understand it either. Hang on. “Understand”? What am I standing under? ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/3 "2011-10-28T15:58:34Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I am prompted to this thread by one I just used: “turns out”. > > We all know what it means: “it became apparent” or “it was revealed”. It refers to something unknown which became known. I just used it to say that I was taking Wellbutrin to stop smoking years ago and discovered that I was allergic, so I said “turns out I am allergic”. That’s not what “turns out” means. It means “results” or “ends up”, and the full phrase is “_it_ turn_ed_ out” when in the past tense. “It turned out I was allergic to it” means “The situation ended up with me allergic to it.” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/4 "2011-10-28T16:01:33Z")
That is only baffling if you only consider “turn” in its most literal sense. There’s a long established metaphor of speaking about a sequence of events as though it is moving along a path - a turn is a deviation from what is expected or has gone before. You can take a bad turn, do a good turn, turn up in an unexpected place. “Turns out” suggests denouement of a situation. “At the end of all the turns…” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/5 "2011-10-28T16:22:39Z")
One I’ve always wondered about is “head over heels”, to indicate something surprising or extraordinary. But your head is almost always over your heels, anyway: It’s the normal state of affairs. It seems to me that someone should be “heels over head in love”, or whatever, to indicate a total upset of usual life. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/6 "2011-10-28T17:13:00Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > That’s not what “turns out” means. It means “results” or “ends up”, and the full phrase is “_it_ turn_ed_ out” when in the past tense. “It turned out I was allergic to it” means “The situation ended up with me allergic to it.” Yes, you’re right! Der… But in my example, it kinda means both, really: my being allergic to it was almost certainly an existing situation that my taking it revealed. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/7 "2011-10-28T17:23:05Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > That is only baffling if you only consider “turn” in its most literal sense. > > There’s a long established metaphor of speaking about a sequence of events as though it is moving along a path - a turn is a deviation from what is expected or has gone before. You can take a bad turn, do a good turn, turn up in an unexpected place. > > “Turns out” suggests denouement of a situation. “At the end of all the turns…” That’s some progress aong the path, definitely, but why out? Are you “in” as your progress through the path? > [@Chronos](#): > > One I’ve always wondered about is “head over heels”, to indicate something surprising or extraordinary. But your head is almost always over your heels, anyway: It’s the normal state of affairs. It seems to me that someone should be “heels over head in love”, or whatever, to indicate a total upset of usual life. ! I never thought of that. My brain always turned it into a visual of a person being, in fact, heels over head! And that is how it started, but evidently the first written version of it, in the 14th century was as “head over heels” for some reason, and it’s been so ever since. In looking that up I was actually led to a page that gave a great description of how “turn out” means what it means: > [@](#): > > The attempt to give an ‘explanation’ for words that practically volunteer to explain themselves may only generate confusion. However, and hopefully, I’ll try here. ‘Turn’, for as long as English has been English, has been used to mean any perceptible change (in state, condition, circumstances, fortune, events - and so on, at this level of generality). And for the same length of time ‘out’ has been understood, as a supplementary adverb, to mean ‘in the end’ (either as result or as finality - or, with fruitful ambivalence, as both together). So ‘turn out’ - in “Wait to see how things turn out” - is plain English, not figurative speech at all. I only hope I haven’t made it less plain with all this explaining! -Bac. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/8 "2011-10-29T02:48:35Z")
You can literally “turn out” your pockets to reveal what’s in them. Hence, “turn out” means to reveal the ending. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/9 "2011-10-29T04:54:22Z")
I used the expression “try and hid his \_\_\_” (in this case incredulity) in a story this week, and had to look it up to make sure it was correct. Why try and hide a response instead of try to hide the response? The “and” is weird. But it’s commonly used to the tune of over 2 million hits. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/10 "2011-10-29T05:11:00Z")
"Fuck You"never made any sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/11 "2011-10-29T05:30:42Z")
I always figured head over heels meant the person was tumbling, head over heels over head, and so on. Like when you take a header down the stairs. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/12 "2011-10-29T06:09:54Z")
Someone going ape-shit. OK, going ape I can understand. I can picture an enraged ape. But going ape-shit? What, somebody goes warm, soft, steamy, and smelly? Edit: Come to think of it, what’s so crazy about bat shit? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/13 "2011-10-29T06:37:54Z")
Interestingly enough, when you want to know how something turned out, you want to know how it went. The word that gave us the preterite went is the archaic word wend meaning to turn. Originally the past tense of wend was went but as English evolved, go stole went and wend settled with wended. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/14 "2011-10-29T07:01:55Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > That’s not what “turns out” means. It means “results” or “ends up”, and the full phrase is “_it_ turn_ed_ out” when in the past tense. “It turned out I was allergic to it” means “The situation ended up with me allergic to it.” Another meaning: I read some mathematical treatise once that used the phrase: “It turns out that \” with a footnote explaining: “It turns out that . . .” == "It can be proved that . . . " ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/15 "2011-10-29T08:48:09Z")
Being “beside himself” with some strong emotion. I assume it means that one isn’t quite oneself if extremely emotional or agitated so it’s as if another person appears. If that makes sense. > [@](#): > > Someone going ape-shit. OK, going ape I can understand. I can picture an enraged ape. But going ape-shit? What, somebody goes warm, soft, steamy, and smelly? Because enraged apes tend to throw their shit at whatever pisses them off? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/16 "2011-10-29T08:52:13Z")
It seems to me that ‘I could care less’ should mean the opposite (or nearly so) of what it appears to mean: if you could care less, there is some degree to which you care; however, the phrase is mostly employed to say ‘I don’t care’, which seems like it would mean you _couldn’t_ care less. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/17 "2011-10-29T14:44:12Z")
“Turned up”, as in “He turned up missing.” ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/18 "2011-10-29T17:42:13Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > "Fuck You"never made any sense to me. I think someone made movie all about the journey of the word fuck. i can’t recall details, though I do remember an essay or monologue wherein someone pointed out that “fuck” has a use as almost every part of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. > [@Ashes\_Ashes](#): > > I always figured head over heels meant the person was tumbling, head over heels over head, and so on. Like when you take a header down the stairs. Yes. > [@Nobody](#): > > Edit: Come to think of it, what’s so crazy about bat shit? One possibility: “batshit crazy” = “a lot of crazy” because batshit is found in humongous quantities where bats live? > [@chiroptera](#): > > Because enraged apes tend to throw their shit at whatever pisses them off? Good call. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > It seems to me that ‘I could care less’ should mean the opposite (or nearly so) of what it appears to mean: if you could care less, there is some degree to which you care; however, the phrase is mostly employed to say ‘I don’t care’, which seems like it would mean you _couldn’t_ care less. That’s just one of those errors people make so often that it’s starting to become sort of acceptable-ish; the correct statement is, as you say, “I couldn’t care less”. I have a current peeve that I am sure will end up being correct just because everyone says it, and I can’t seem to stop flinching every time I hear it: “continue on” you go on, you continue, you don’t continue on. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/19 "2011-10-29T17:43:22Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > “Turned up”, as in “He turned up missing.” Particularly nonsensical in that sentence, since _he_ didn’t turn up at all. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080/20 "2011-10-29T19:34:17Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > That’s just one of those errors people make so often that it’s starting to become sort of acceptable-ish; the correct statement is, as you say, “I couldn’t care less”. I have a current peeve that I am sure will end up being correct just because everyone says it, and I can’t seem to stop flinching every time I hear it: “continue on” you go on, you continue, you don’t continue on. I’ve heard it defended a few times as being ironic. The people saying it are saying it ironically. I think that’s a load of crap. Most people say it because they think that’s how it’s supposed to be said. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-english-phrases-that-when-you-really-think-about-it-dont-make-sense/601080.md?page=2)