For those who can read Spanish, I was looking for the sesquipedalian version of “a palabras necias, oídos sordos” (when words are stupid, ears are deaf) and found a site containing several instances of similar rephrasings. The one for that line is given as “a palabras emitidas por laringes incoherentes, trompa de Eustaquio en estado letárgico” (when words are pronounced by incoherent larynxes, Eustachian tubes are in a state of letargy), I’ve heard other variants but they’re similar.
Whenever anything inantimate doesn’t work for someone I’ll always quip
“Heh…he doesn’t like you!” ala Dr. Evanzan in Star Wars.
Only once in my many years of saying this has someone responded to me correctly
It’s AIRY persiflage.
It adds a little verisimilitude.
“Hot Dog vendors had an image problem already without one of them passing out in the street in front of a whorehouse”
J.K. Toole
An Americanism – rather dated, I think – which I, not American, once or twice came across somewhere, and loved. Said of a clueless person: “He doesn’t know shit from Shinola”. I have not the faintest idea what Shinola is, or was; but I have a great fondness for the expression – it “says it all”.
Shinolawas a shoe polish brand more than a century ago. No doubt, they sold brown shoe polish, hence the saying.
I’ve always liked, and frequently relied on, “It never hurts to apologize, especially when you don’t mean it.” From Jim Bouton’s book, “Ball Four.”
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” (W C Fields)
“Whatever doesn’t kill me just delays the inevitable.”
“Marriage is the No. 1 cause of divorce.”
“Your worst humiliation is only someone else’s momentary amusement.”
“Just because you want it, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
If you ever, EVER, think you’ll get to the last line of that exchange (“YOU’LL BE DEAD!”), Please contact me ASAP. You’ll know me: I’ll be the guy on the floor with tears streaming from his eyes, it’ll be so good!
In the meantime, there’s this.
My ol’ Grammy said “He doesn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of” about ne’er-do-wells.
She was fond of “I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know”
Do no harm but take no BS.
I say, “gotta see a man about a horse” a couple times a day, and a couple times a night thanks to my prostate.
From Dave Barry:
The only way to make sure a plumbing part won’t leak is to tighten it until it breaks.
Words to live by.
“You can’t just sit around and drink all day if you don’t start first thing in the morning!”
Also said (and the correct stress dwelt upon, at length) by Vincent Spano and Peter O’Toole in Creator (1985)
Career advice from the founder of the company I work for: “Find out what you’re not good at, and don’t do it.”
*Creator *was the first thing I thought of for that line.
“Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.”