How many meanings has the phrase "time flies like an arrow"

Factual Questions
#21

Got one!

Please measure the amount of time it takes these flies to do some unmentioned tasks. Also, become fond of an arrow.

#22

Or then there is the symbolic meaning, but applied to the arrow as a shape rather than as a physical item. Time flies in such a way that it goes straight forward for a while, spreads out suddenly, and then tapers to a point.

#23

Use your stopwatch to ascertain how quickly people can zip up their pants in a swift, straight manner.

#24

Confucius say: When attempting to cook long, straight strips of potato (that are sharply tapered at one end) in oil, it is necessary to time the operation precisery.

#25

Find some flies that are similar to an arrow, and time them.

#26

That is equivalent to the third one in the OP.

#27

Yea, I realized that after I posted it, but too late to edit it.

#28

She bears each cross patiently?

#29

:confused: Would you care to explain?


If you fold up this news magazine (the world's largest) just so, you can project it through the air a considerable distance, and with considerable accuracy.
#30

Just another phrase with many possible meanings.

#31

Darn, the last has been done and I missed the edit window. :frowning:

#32

Oh, I am with you now: like the striptease artist distracting drivers and making things difficult for pedestrians.

#33

Has this one been done:

The objects known as “time flies” are similar to arrows in an unspecified way.

It should really have a comma: Time flies, like an arrow.

#34

Wait, so are we allowed to add punctuation? Because if so, it could be a Valley girl making fun of that geeky pilot named Time…

“Time flies, like, an arrow.”

#35

Well you wouldn’t necessarily need punctuation in my example, it would just be a sentence fragment. Upon checking the OP it did specify “phrase” rather than sentence.

You could use it in a sci fi novel to describe the action of “time flies”:

The time flies like an arrow did plunge into the center of the combat.

#36

A Pierce Arrow was an automobile and as such didn’t fly at all. So if time was passing slowly, you could sarcasticly say that time is flying like a car.

#37

The amount of force exerted by the passage (or flight) of time is approximately that which would be represented by an attonewton using arrow notation.

#38

The time that flies like is an arrow. (This would not be correct grammar except in newspaper headlines, but still, constructions such as this are used regularly. Or should I say “Constructions like this used regularly”)

#39

Both sem and gram. The phrase was coined by someone or other in early work on AI precisely to play with a computer’s “understanding.”

#40

Time I left
Time for bed
Time flies like an arrow