When I was in retail, we would periodically get visited by corporate types and have to spend days making sure the store was in a state it could not possibly be kept in on a day-to-day basis if we wanted to actually sell anything, and yet pretend that the store looked this way every day. As a manager I called this hiding the bloody knife–a reference to OJ Simpson. People rarely got it.
According to dictionary.com, “Tide over” means to get over an obstacle, to survive, or to help get past a time of difficulty or distress.
So, if it’s 4PM and you’ve got a bad case of the munchies, a banana would tide you over until dinner time.
I know what a red letter day is but only because the Pet Shop Boys had a hit with a song called ‘A Red Letter Day’.
Some things I say that people never get:
“ARE THESE MY FEET?!”
“You leave me only three options…”
“Oh it’s you, why are you pestering me?”
“Is it a hat?” and by extension, “Will it be with me forever?”
Basically my entire vocabulary is quotes from Seinfeld and The Simpsons, which people usually get, plus the shows that the above quotes come from, which nobody outside my family ever gets, and I’ll be impressed if someone can identify what the shows are (the last one is probably the easiest as it’s from the more popular series).
If I do something incredibly stupid in front of the kids, I’ll say “and it’s just…that…easy!”
Thank you Flying Karamazovs!
Growing up in San Diego in the 80’s, we called cops “Shneds”, which is something I’ve never heard again outside of SD (or outside the 80’s), but it still occasionally slips out of my mouth. It doesn’t help that I have no idea how it originated.
Prior to start of ANY business meeting I would look whoever was sitting next to me and ask:
“What would you be rather doing than marching up and down the square?”
A number of times I wanted to shout this after a bad date but kept my cool.
Whenever I see worms or anything worm related I comment “Such a nice worm” with a bit of a lisp. No one gets it. Even my boyfriend who saw the show this came from and we used to quote it all the time, didn’t remember what it was from when I said this recently. Anyone know what it’s from?
I love how you answered the question I asked, by referencing my own post. I didn’t actually know what it means when I started using it…and still I really don’t. I have no idea where I heard the phrase (since I am now certain I didn’t make it up) and the explanation I gave people…the one above…is something I just made up using my head/logic. Apparently I was right…
But that doesn’t explain WHY “Tide over” means to get over an obstacle or a bad time. So it does NOT make sense until I can find some etymology.
And if I don’t know why I “red up” a room til it’s “up to scratch”, or why I “make no bones about it” when “the writing’s on the wall” so I make sure I’m “toeing the mark”…
then I shouldn’t USE those phrases! Unless I’m willing to do a little work and look them up (which I just did ;)).
So now you’re referencing my post referencing your own post because I knew that you knew what you were saying even though you didn’t know that you knew what you were saying? Is that what you’re saying?
Because in that case, you clearly know what you’re saying.
If I had to make a BS etymological guess, I’d say “Tide over” comes from ships getting stuck at low tide and having to wait for high tide to lift them off of whatever obstacle they’re stuck on (like a sandbar or just the beach if it was a boat you landed at high tide). I know that “The writing’s on the wall” is from the Book of Daniel. Learning of this book makes the movie StarGate unbelievably more entertaining than it already was.
The confusion comes from thinking that "tide"in this sense must be derived from oceanic tides.
It’s more straightforward than that. The etymological root, “tid,” signifies “a division of time.” (As you might guess, the English word “time” itself ultimately comes from the same germanic root.)
Similarly, “tidings” has nothing to do with the sea, but is parallel with “news” in the sense that it denotes “information related to the current period.”
To “tide us over” simply means to “get us through the current period.”
Ocean “tides” so-called because they relate to regular divisions of time.
My dad has owned a mom and pop type store for 30 years. I’ve been working there for about 18 of those thirty. From time to time when telling someone that they’ll ask me if I’m going to take it over and then say something along the lines of “Someday this could all be yours.” I’ve yet to have someone understand my reply. Knowing this message board I’m going to guess plenty of people can guess it.
The curtains?
Also, if someone gives me a list of options I like to say “What was the middle thing again?”
Do you say “Wha… the curtains?” in a really weak, wimpy, whiny voice?
A movie line so obscure that only my sister and I know it. We’ve been searching for said movie title for decades now. I’ll describe it in the off-chance someone knows it. This is on my bucket list, to find the name of this darned movie!
The line (whenever anyone clumsily trips over anything) is a drawled “Ah Treeeupped” (I tripped).
The movie was an old B&W (probably mid to late 60s, maybe early 70s) one we watched on Midnight Movies back in the early 80s. We came in after the movie had started. The TV stations that played the late night movies back then were terrible about not ever stating the name of the movie after it’d started.
The premise of the movie was a sort of weird western “whodunit”. Several people (on a cattle drive of some sort) were around a campfire and had discovered one of their group dead, stabbed through the heart. So then they all go through a series of flashbacks of the ways in which various members of the group could have killed the guy. It turns out that he’d tripped somehow and landed on the knife, accidentally killing himself. He looks up in surprise and drawls the line “Ah treeupped”. It was either the last, or one of the last lines of the movie.
It was one of those “so bad it’s good” kind of things, and the stupid line just stuck. So our entire family and our friends use it as one of our family jokes. Makes for great mileage if you can use it after a spectacular fall or trip. 
My little Sister and I also use a slightly more well-known, but still a bit obscure movie line.
“See, this is why I hate these things, they always jam. Daddy would have gotten us uzis”. It always surprises me when I use it and someone I know (especially younger folks) get the reference and can quote other lines. That one is from a cult 80s classic.
I don’t have a clue what any of those are from. Particularly the last one. 
I named my rabbit Bellamy - so far only one person has got the reference and I’m pretty sure they are on this board
Similarly, I started saying danke schoen instead of thank you, which then mutated into ‘donkey shin’. People have no idea what I’m talking about when I say ‘donkey shin’.
This is probably way off but…Matt Bellamy of Muse?
My standard response to “danke” is “Betavision.” 30 years on, I still find it funny. (Although deep down, I understand that it’s really, really not.)
And, yeah… increasingly people seem to think that it’s just really poor enunciation. Get off my lawn!
Just a hint or two: It has something to do with rabbits, a famous book/movie and an oldish English comedy program