# Mangled idioms **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 15, 2015, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718 "2015-10-15T13:49:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718/21 "2015-10-16T18:30:21Z")
A poster mentions irrational annoyance caused by idiom-mangling – by all sane view-taking, disproportionate to the offence, but you just can’t help it. I suffered this, from some things habitually said by my ex. One involved the saying about someone being “a piece of work” – sometimes with an adjective added: “nasty piece of work”, etc. My ex always put it as “piece of work **s** ” – which to my mind doesn’t make sense; whereas the singular version, does. This exasperated me: but I always felt that I had to suffer in silence. She was decidedly thin-skinned; and about a lot of things, highly oblivious – correcting her would just have occasioned hurt feelings, and no change for the better. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718/22 "2015-10-16T18:37:38Z")
From a FedEx commercial from a few years ago: “Steely Dan is not one person. We get fringe benefits, not French benefits, it’s not the Leaning Tower of Pizza, and James Dean was an actor—Jimmy Dean makes sausages.” “So, we don’t get French benefits?” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718/23 "2015-10-16T18:37:53Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > He wasn’t by any chance from Russian roots, I suppose? I gather that in the earlier decades of the USSR, a thing in the then regime’s jargon arose from its wish for the people to become cultured: “nye-kulturny” (“non-cultured”) was a much used across-the-board term of disapproval. Good alternative, for sure. But in this case I believe he was using a word sound-alike to mean something it didn’t mean. It was comical at least. Along the lines of other misfires in this thread. 🙂 I always tried to avoid rolling my eyes when somebody wanted me to draw up a _graft_ of some trend in our business. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718/24 "2015-10-16T19:00:10Z")
Caveat Emperor. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718/25 "2015-10-16T19:10:03Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > Okay is it “hear, hear” or “here, here”? > > Because to me “hear, hear” is correct - as in, “listen to what is being said!” and “here, here” bugs me. But then again “here, here” could be like “I understand what you’re saying over here.” > > Is it an either/or thing? Basically, I concur re either / or: think it originated as, “hear the excellent stuff which this person is saying” – but probably, almost from the first, also with overtones of “we, over here, agree”. Homophones can be handy things ! ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718/26 "2015-10-16T19:30:24Z")
> [@ReticulatingSplines](#): > > It irrationally pisses me off when people say “The proof is in the pudding,” instead of “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Apparently, you have never tried my Jim Beam pudding recipe. You don’t have to taste it to know the proof is there, smelling will do the trick! A match will work as well… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mangled-idioms/734718.md?page=1)