Phrases I Don't Understand. Any You Don't Get?

[Bookkeeper]

@Dusty_Rose

My mom used to say this: They’d bitch if you hung 'em with a new rope.

I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now. If you’re hanging someone, are they supposed to be happier because you’re using a new rope instead of an old one?

This refers to someone who will bitch about every tiny little thing regardless of how significant it is (IIRC new ropes are pricklier and more irritating to the neck than old, worn ropes).

[Malthus]

@Bookkeeper

@Dusty_Rose

My mom used to say this: They’d bitch if you hung 'em with a new rope.

I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now. If you’re hanging someone, are they supposed to be happier because you’re using a new rope instead of an old one?

This refers to someone who will bitch about every tiny little thing regardless of how significant it is (IIRC new ropes are pricklier and more irritating to the neck than old, worn ropes).

I think the key to the saying is that they are bitching about an insignificant detail (the prickliness of the new rope) while ignoring the overwhelming important issue (they are about to die).

[Ponch8]

@Ninja_Lauren

“They’re sure full of piss and vinegar!” I don’t get that one. I know it’s meant to say someone is full of energy, or spunk. But I don’t see why piss and vinegar would ever be mixed in the first place. Does piss and vinegar do something crazy if you mix it? Maybe I’m just being to literal.

Speaking of vinegar, another one I don’t get is “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” meaning you can get ahead just by being nice to people. Why would you ever WANT to catch flies?

[Giles]

@Ponch8

Speaking of vinegar, another one I don’t get is “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” meaning you can get ahead just by being nice to people. Why would you ever WANT to catch flies?

To kill them.

[Kamino_Neko]

To keep them off you and what you’re eating.

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

@Ponch8

I don’t know how the term “to be beside oneself” (meaning agitated or upset about something) arose.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=1027728&postcount=2

[guizot]

@Gyrate

As for what it means to you and others who use it: it depends. Either it means that, as bad as things are, this is as good as it gets and things could only be worse (whether you intrepret that as optimism or pessimism is a glass half empty/half full question), or it means that like Voltaire someone is being sarcastic. I’m not aware of a recent resurgence but YMMV.

I think some people say, “In the best of all possible worlds,” when they mean to say, “In a perfect world”–though that wasn’t the idea of the original phrase.