can’t see the forest for the trees
you’re concentrating too much on the specifics of a problem and are thus missing the ‘big picture’. At least that’s how i’ve always interpreted it.
Gotcha. Thanks.
“How can anyone see a forest with all those trees in the way?” Not only paying too much attention to detail but also missing something obvious because of this.
aw snap can also be used to express excitement. If you find out that your band is going to give a free concert in the local park, it would be appropriate to say aw/oh snap! I don’t think anyone has used that term in years though, have they?
Biggirl, would you mind passing the definition of “dog in the manger” on to me? Please?
OK, so you’re in the smack dab middle of the forest. Trees everywhere you look. You decided to check out the nearby trees more closely … gaze up at how high they are, feel the bark with your fingers, maybe taste a little sap. For a little while, you forget that you are in the middle of a really huge place – the forest.
Folks that figuratively “can’t see the forest for the trees” come in a few varieties. Some are nit-pickers and micro-managers who can’t see the big picture, iinstead preferring to focus on trivial issues. Others are folks who overlook warning signs of impending doom of a major enterprise because some relatively unimportant things are going great in the short term.
Window Shopping / Window Licking - Though it means browsing a retailer’s wares through a store front, I wish they’d update it.
“Dog in the manger” comes from a parable or fable about a dog lying in a manger (feeding device for cattle/horses, usually containing hay) and preventing the cows from getting to it. Means someone who hangs on to something he can’t use for no good reason, to spite others who could use it.
Actually, I’ve been trying to bring it back.
“Word” No, not the computer program, the statement made by my 14 y.o. daughter’s friends.
(I am in my 40s.)
The expression “Word” is making a comeback?
About 15 years ago, it used to mean “Agreed”, “Indeed!”, “Preach on!”.
Yeah. It comes from the children’s card game: each player places a card face up on the table in turn. When two consecutive cards match, the first one to shout “Snap!” wins the cards on the pile.
No, it’s a reference to the person’s innocence (or otherwise) – it originally referred exclusively to women. The warmth she lacked to melt the butter was the heat of passion. It helps if you realise that it wasn’t her mouth that the original expression had the butter in.
Word= Agreed, or Good Point
Think of it as “Here Here!”
“No better than she (or he) should be”
I get a sense of what this British expression means–it has something to do with social classes–but as I look at it, it makes less and less sense. What does it mean, exactly?
The implication is that she is considerably worse than she should be, but that the speaker is too polite to say so.
Thank you to Sal Ammoniac and CalMeacham for the explanations of ‘sea change.’ It makes perfect sense, and it’s quite an interesting concept that a paradigm shift in public opinion could be compared to the ocean having changed something over time.
I use “sea change” all the time. As someone mentioned, it’s from “The Tempest,” from some of the most beautiful lines in all of Shakespeare:
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
It’s a profound change. I wouldn’t liken it to driftwood, but to a grain of sand becoming a pearl.
I’m so lame–or so cool–that I never stopped using it. I use it to mean “really?”.
that should be “Hear, Hear.” 