I’ve been hearing this phrase more and more lately and it’s really driving me insane. What does it mean?
“I’ll put together a list of pieces parts.”
“Here you’ll see the various pieces parts.”
“We’re waiting on pieces parts.”
Ahhh! It sounds so stupid to my ears. If you mean parts, say parts. If you mean pieces, say pieces. If you don’t know what you mean, don’t say both! If you are trying to say a piece of a part, then it is still a piece - not a pieces part. A part of a piece is still a part! Auuugh! the words have lost their meaning. Pieces… peeces…pea says…peace eds…pisces… pie lesu domine ::WHACK:: dona e es requim.
OK, here’s where the IMHO comes in. If you have heard this phrase, what is your opinion on it (humble or otherwise)? And is there a reason for the jamming the two words together? Am I missing something? Is there any way this isn’t as stupid as it sounds to me?
The first time I heard it was an old Wendy’s commercial making fun of McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets:
Customer: What’s it made from?
McDrone: Parts.
Customer: What kind of parts?
McDrone: Pieces parts.
Customer: Pieces parts?
McDrone: Yep. And parts is parts.
I’ve used it (and heard it used) since then as a humorous way of saying “you don’t want to know what’s in it”. I’ve never heard anyone actually use it seriously, though.
The Wendy’s commercial was the first thing I thought of too.
A previous boss used to say “piece-parts” when he was referring to something overly complex or cobbled together. Like, “I’m tired of dealing with all these piece-parts. We need a new system.” That’s the only time I’ve heard it. I thought it was an OK way to convey the sense that this was something that was thrown together into a big fiddly mess – we’re not just dealing with the damned parts, we’re dealing with pieces of parts! Yeah, stupid upon analysis, but I kind of liked it.
I buy that. And, I’m guessing that is what is trying to be conveyed here as well. But what, in the name of Lucifer’s rotting crotch fungus, is wrong with just saying pieces? Or just saying parts? How does pieces/parts convey anything more?
When I hear it it sounds like the person saying it is trying to sound smarter than they are - and that’s how they come off.
Luckily it sounds like this phrase isn’t too widely spread.
I’ve heard, and used, this expression all my life and always assumed that “piece’s” started out as a possessive, not a plural (the piece’s parts). I would use it more for something that was “cobbled together” from parts of other things, or for something that had a larger than expected number of small parts, but definitely with the sense of “the parts that make up the piece”.
In some cases it could be parts of many different pieces of something even bigger as in “I finished replacing the start motor in my car and now have some piece’s parts left over”.
In electronics manufacturing the term “piece parts” (singular on the former) is used all the time to differentiate between a handful of individual unassembled electronic parts and, well, an actual electronics assembly.
I suggest you end every conversation with the boss with thank you you or maybe wubble wubble. When he says “What?” you can say it makes as much sense as pieces parts.
We all use colloquial terms that sound “retarded.”
But from the get-go, we realize that sooner, rather than later, when the rubber hits the road, at the end of the day, these are just sayings. In terms of words I mean.
“Piece Parts” has been a standard manufacturing term as long as I can remember. I’ve never heard the term “pieces parts.”
But if I did, I’d distinguish the two by pieces being standalone things and parts being items that when assembled together become some sort of useful object.
