# Phrases "ruined by people making the obvious stupid joke" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 9, 2022, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679 "2022-07-09T20:41:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2022, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/41 "2022-07-14T19:16:05Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](#): > > Mackay mentions a few catch phrases that were everywhere in London in the 1850’s, and have since vanished from the vernacular. Thanks for that! It includes the bizarre catch-phrase ‘Walker!’ which apparently came from ‘the chorus of a popular ballad’ in Victorian London. This catch-phrase would be entirely forgotten, except for its (somewhat mystifying) inclusion in A Christmas Carol. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/42 "2022-07-14T19:56:51Z")
Now we use “Bueller?!” We’re so much more advanced. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2022, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/43 "2022-07-15T01:24:37Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > getting a snack to tide me over sounds like normal language to me. And you may use it… IF you know what it means, and from whence it comes. That’s what drives me crazy about my mom. Whenever we kids would ask her about one of her many idioms she’d just shrug and say “Oh, it’s just an old saying…” and one of us would ask her _"AND…?_ Were you about to tell us what it means?" “Oh, no, I have no idea.” _ **How can someone have so little curiosity about something they repeatedly say**?_ (And this seems to spill over into other areas of her life: “Well, I read that somewhere, and if it isn’t true, it should be.”) Now, in her nineties, she’s had two additional generations question her sayings. I inwardly feel vindicated when she asks a kid about a “tide-me-over” and he does a double-take: “Whoa… Great Gram, what the HECK does THAT mean?” When she shrugs it off again, I sometimes pile on and ask\* “Is that one of those Tide Pods I’ve read about, that people your age chew on? Or is it the hard tack and rum that pirates would snack on until _The Tide_ came in and their ship could float away?” \*I’ve asked this exact same question hundreds of times since I was that great-grandkid’s age… ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2022, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/44 "2022-07-15T01:43:33Z")
I mean, “tide me over” means that i have enough of something to get me through some temporary trial… Like having enough food now that i won’t be hungry until supper. Or enough money to pay the rent until i start getting paid by that new job i started. And… If your mom used the phrase, i would think you could figure out what it meant from context. I don’t know the etymology if that’s what you mean. I don’t know the etymology of lots of words and phrases. I would assume it originally meant something like using the high tide to get over some minor obstacle. But i don’t see how knowing whether that’s true or not is important to using the idiom. I don’t know the etymology of “idiom”, either. I suppose i could Google either. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2022, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/45 "2022-07-15T04:48:26Z")
> [@digs](#): > > That’s what drives me crazy about my mom. Whenever we kids would ask her about one of her many idioms she’d just shrug and say “Oh, it’s just an old saying…” and one of us would ask her _"AND…?_ Were you about to tell us what it means?" > “Oh, no, I have no idea.” > > _ **How can someone have so little curiosity about something they repeatedly say**?_ Same thing with my ex-in-laws, but you have to remember that they couldn’t just get on the internet and google the etymology like we can. They knew it meant _something_, and that was good enough. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2022, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/46 "2022-07-15T16:37:40Z")
I’ve certainly heard and used “tide me over” to mean doing an interim holding action until more definitive permanent action can be taken. Usually in the context of a shortage. “There’s no way to get lunch, so this Power Bar will tide me over until dinner.” I have never heard, read, or used it as a noun phrase: “I’ll use this Power Bar as a tide-me-over until dinner.” The broad meaning is the same (presumably), but I’ve just never heard it in that form. As to your Mom, are you saying she has no idea of the idiomatic meaning and she just said/says it at random times in random circumstances, or do you mean she doesn’t know or at least can’t explain the etymology of how the dictionary meaning of the words somehow became this different idiomatic meaning and how it became them popularized? Big difference. I know what the idiom _means_. I can make plausible guesses at how it possibly came to be from the raw dictionary definition of the components, but I certainly don’t _know_. As others have said, those of us of the internet era, even if we came to it later in life, take for granted that any question of knowledge, even folk knowledge, can be trivially looked up and answered in seconds. So we do. For people of high native curiosity, this is a catnip-filled era. I can spend hours looking up stuff I randomly encounter in the world. In Ye Olden Dayes of Yore (=pre 1995), there was no such capability. A LOT of what we’d label “curiosity”, they’d have called “idle curiosity”, which is to say “Curiosity that cannot be answered and so retaining the question simply represents useless mental clutter. Accept, Ignore, and move on.” ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2022, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/47 "2022-07-20T04:19:55Z")
I have a middle-aged friend from South Dakota who uses ‘a horse apiece’ unironically. AIUI, it’s equivalent to 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Probably based on the idea that horses, in general, have a similar distance they can travel in a day; going this way is shorter, but it had a lot of hills, so it’s a wash, a tank of gas either way, a horse apiece. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2022, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/48 "2022-07-20T08:32:08Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Or is it the hard tack and rum that pirates would snack on until _The Tide_ came in and their ship could float away?” This seems closest. This internet source suggests it is a sea-faring term, first attested in 1627 by John Smith of Pocahontas fame. > **[What Does Tide You Over Mean? - Writing Explained](https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/tide-you-over)** > > To tide you over definition. What is the meaning of tide you over? Tide them over. Tide us over. Find out how to use these phrases and their origins. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/49 "2022-07-21T02:58:04Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](#): > > The mechanism and spread of catch phrases is a little different in 2022 than it was in 1852, but the tendency of catch phrases to catch on, spread like wildfire, and vanish is unchanged The most recent WordMatters podcast includes some fun examples (“succulent bivalve”?!?): > **[Word Matters](https://www.npr.org/podcasts/925875362/word-matters)** > > Word Matters is a show for readers, writers, and anyone who ever loved their English class. Join Merriam-Webster editors as they challenge supposed grammar rules, reveal the surprising origins behind words, tackle common questions, and generally geek... ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecc23a/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada_Jr)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/50 "2022-07-21T14:45:26Z")
Another interesting question is which catch-phrases are picked up and used, and which are dropped. “What a shocking bad hat” is completely gone, but “O.K.” is alive and going strong–I hear it when my colleagues are speaking Hindi, so it seems to have spread beyond English. “Tiding over” is alive, “to the bitter end” is alive. Will “the cake is a lie” survive? How about “cromulent”, will it jump from the occasional ironic use to normal conversation? Only time will tell. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/51 "2022-07-21T15:05:47Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > The most recent WordMatters podcast includes some fun examples (“succulent bivalve”?!?): What was the category that brought up clams? > [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](#): > > How about “cromulent”, will it jump from the occasional ironic use to normal conversation? This will be the most interesting to watch. Will the word ‘cromulent’ remain cromulent? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/52 "2022-07-21T16:25:57Z")
I’ve occasionally used it, not without keeping its origins in the back of my mind, but still, as the legitimately best word for “a thing, especially a word, that some may consider dubious at first glance or whose worthiness is currently being debated, but is nonetheless perfectly acceptable.” ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/53 "2022-07-21T16:44:23Z")
That’s elegantly and oddly recursive. Cromulent _means_ exactly what it _is_. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2022, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/54 "2022-07-22T10:54:32Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > What was the category that brought up clams? They never explained why “succulent bivalve” was such a popular expression in 1925 that a guide to writing admonished that a good writer should cut back on its overuse! That was the funny thing — catch phrases are so obvious to people while they’re popular, they need no further explanation … yet leave future readers utterly baffled. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2022, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/55 "2022-07-22T11:00:44Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](#): > > Another interesting question is which catch-phrases are picked up and used, and which are dropped Yes, this is the focus of the podcast (direct link to specific episode below) … how unpredictable this process is. > **[Hackneyed Phrases, Both Old and New](https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-matters-podcast/episode-98-hackneyed-phrases-both-old-and-new)** > > Word Matters, episode 98 ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2022, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/56 "2022-07-22T11:32:59Z")
How about someone who can’t resist channeling their inner Michael Scott whenever phrases like these are said in an innocuous context: - This is really hard - Is it in yet? - It won’t fit - It’s too short / it’s not long enough In case someone’s not familiar with The Office, the obvious stupid joke is: THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID HAR HAR HAR ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2022, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/57 "2022-07-22T15:15:41Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > That was the funny thing — catch phrases are so obvious to people while they’re popular, they need no further explanation … yet leave future readers utterly baffled Well, clams are still quite popular around here, and while the designation ‘quahog’ is better known in these parts than elsewhere, ‘succulent’ and ‘bivalve’ are have been on the list of highfalutin words for a long time so no surprise that they didn’t catch on. Totally off on a tangent, there are the words ‘falutin’ and ‘highfalutin’, but according to Merriam-Webster, there is no word ‘faluting’. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679/58 "2022-07-28T02:00:00Z")
Probably not. Although I found one site that backed up your version, the majority say the phrase originated in Texas in the late 19th century and had nothing to do with harvesting the crop. Here’s a typical one: [Grammarphobia](https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2006/09/can-you-cut-the-mustard.html) > The phrase “cut the mustard” originated in late 19th-century America. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as “slang (originally U.S.),” and says the noun “mustard” here means “something which adds piquancy or zest; that which sets the standard or is the best of anything.” > > The OED says the the phrase and its variants mean “to come up to expectations, to meet requirements, to succeed.” The variant phrases “to be the mustard” or “to be to the mustard” are also defined as “to be exactly what is required; to be very good or special.” > > The dictionary’s earliest recorded use of “cut the mustard” is from a Texas newspaper, in an article about legislative debate: > > “They applied several coats of carmine hue and cut the mustard over all their predecessors” (Galveston Daily News, April 9, 1891). > > The same newspaper used the phrase again the following year: “Time will reveal that he cannot ‘cut the mustard’ ” (Sept. 12, 1892). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-ruined-by-people-making-the-obvious-stupid-joke/967679.md?page=2)