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At the end of the day
Have you noticed how often clichés creep into conversation? Consider 'at the end of the day' which means roughly the same as 'when all's said and done' or 'considering all the facts'. In other words, it doesn't really mean very much at all, like 'actually' or 'in fact'.
The bottom line to all this is that these clichés, hackneyed phrases and trite expressions are a part of our language and we’d be lost without them.
Incidentally, 'the bottom line' originally referred to the most meaningful part of a financial statement, and is apparently favoured by the American Republicans, while the Democrats are more partial to 'at the end of the day'.
Queen Elizabeth II used the expression 'at the end of the day' when opening a building in 1982, although this cliché has been bandied around since the seventies. Its most recent rise in usage could be attributed to the song from the very successful Les Misérables. “At The End Of The Day” is sung quite early on in what is a very long musical (and now a movie).
Cliché was originally a French word for a printing plate, made of wood, and later of metal. The plate was reused, hence it came to mean a phrase that is reused. The Collins dictionary defines a cliché as "a word or expression that has lost much of its force through overexposure".
Trite comes from the Latin for worn out and was used in the same way as threadbare or shopworn. Now it is most often associated with the hackneyed phrase.
Hackneyed comes from the London borough of Hackney where horses were bred and trained for hire. These horses were known for their lazy, comfortable gait, which led to their overuse. By 1500 'hackney' meant anyone who worked for hire and a hackneyed phrase is one that is overused like the horses.
The main reason we use clichés is laziness. We can’t be bothered to think up new descriptions, so we cover the same ground, repeat the same old hairy chestnuts, in one ear and out the other, time after time, ad nauseam, year in year out.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is, I could go on ... but I’ll spare you.
Happy Puzzling!
Christine Lovatt
At the end of the day
Well, I know I'm a sandwich short of a picnic and as low as a dead lizard's lip, so I won't try to beat a dead horse or even kill two birds with the one stone. Nope, I think I'll just go jump in the lake.
"In actual fact" (what other sort of fact is there?) and "at this point in time" - you mean "Now?" are my bugbears. By the way, Christine, what is a "bugbear"?
haha kragzy how about as busy as a lizard drinking or shoot through like a bondi tram
What irritates me is *ASOLUTELY* for yes and worse *ABSOLUTELY NOT* for no.
A common cliche, often used by Rugby League players and commentators, is "it all goes well"...what they mean is "it augurs well" - which is also a cliche... PS Noonee..the more common form of the lizard cliche is "flat out like a lizard drinking"
a cliche as AS USELESS AS A TWO BOB WATCH , OR hubby favourite one , AS RARE AS ROCKING HORSE *SWEAR* LOL
AS RARE AS ROCKING HORSE *BLEEP* , not swear, or as useless as tits on a bull,.
krazgy i can give another one simular , THE LIFT DOESN DOESNT GO TO THE TOP FLOOR ,OR A TINNY SHORT OF A SIX PACK , { MEANNG BL___Y THICK }
"Just wanted to touch base" and "in the pipeline", both are used much too often in business conversations. I too have wondered where "bugbear" came from.
"Work shop a few ideas"..,and "run a few ideas up the flagpole" are part of todays business vernacular that make me cringe. Im more into.. lower than a snakes guts.. fuller than a fat ladies sock.. dry as a lime burners boot.. useless as a hip pocket in a singlet... as slow as a wet week..
How about "lead from the front"? Where else would you be? Also "moving forward". Shudder...
'He/she's not the sharpest tool in the shed.' 'Angry as a hornet's nest.' And my fav. response to the perennial 'Wheres my...', 'Not in my pocket, darling.' And my old mum used to say, 'Can't see for looking.'
I like "it's six of one and half dozen of the other". I just can't think of a more interesting way of saying the argument is balanced both ways so make a decision! It goes well with "we have to agree to disagree". It is interesting to explain what they all mean to children when found in texts.
Staff
Nowadays a bugbear is something which is annoying or irritating, but in the past it was much scarier. It comes from the old Welsh word bugge ‘a frightening thing’ or the Scottish bogill ‘goblin’ and was comparable to the bogeyman, historically used to frighten naughty children.
"Not in my pocket" has a different meaning for me. I used to take my elderly brother and his wife, who had Alzheimer's disease out to lunch. If I placed my sunglasses on the table they'd disappear. I'd have to sweetly smile and ask everyone to check whether they might have inadvertently picked them up. They'd be in her pocket every time. I had to learn NOT to put them on the table.
As annoying as "lead from the front" or "moving forward" is the request to "back back". Reverse, perhaps?
Yes, Beauregarde, the time isn't too far off before I'll have to check first before answering.
Most annoying? 'Are we on the same page?' What bloody page? I can't even see a bloody book!
85 yrs old mother-in-law says of a blunt knife - "it wouldn't cut pussy"! - necer been game to query meaning.
' A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse', 'I'm talking to the organ-grinder, not the monkey' and 'There are more ways to kill a pig than soaking it in butter' were all favourite sayings of my grandfather.
'no room to swing a cat' and 'do as I say and not as I do' were classics from my grandmother...
I wonder what your mum-in-law did mean, lindama! Of course 'no room to swing a cat' doesnt refer to a feline but to there being limited space to use a 'cat of nine tails'. My pet hate one is 'to be honest or 'to be perfectly honest' ...what else would one be?
Lindama, you made me laugh! ... I'm thinking it means to castrate the tomcat. But you would think that would need a sharp knife. And then I remembered hearing that some sheep farmers have been known to use their teeth on baby male lambs... if they don't have anything else around... But using your teeth to castrate a tomcat would be just 'borrowing trouble'.
This is a really enjoyable blog, and brings back memories of my mother who could never recite a cliche correctly - excusable since she came to Australia with many other northern European migrants in the late 1940s and had no English. She learnt the idioms, slang, cliches and swear words long before she could put an English sentence together properly.
Well of course I'm now almost over the hill, getting long in the tooth, have one foot in the grave, and I have almost reached my use-by date...but I still feel like a spring chicken.
I love the idioms and slang in Australian language use, they really are quite creative sometimes, "not fit to boil the fat off a mosquitoes back" and "it was so mucky a duck would get bogged" are a couple of real beauties. Actually got those from the Jerilderie letter. Cliches I can do without.
On annoying people, "driving me nuts", "driving me round the bend" and "driving me up the wall" I've always found them highly amusing!
A family friend used to say 'Fit as a Malley Bull'. and how about 'Two shakes of a lambs tail'
'Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?' -means a sure thing. I think I must have picked in up from American cartoons because I've always said it in an American drawl.
Still anxious and nervous about clicking on the blog in case that spider returns! Hope it's as 'dead as a door nail'. As a child I always liked 'if only walls could talk'.
a favourite of my daughters' is: "I see said the blind carpenter, so he picked up his hammer and saw" !!!
another one like that, surfdriver, is "I see, said the blind man to his deaf son". I like, and use, "as obvious as db's". But I hate, hate, hate overused ones, particularly "at the end of the day". just shows how stupid and unimaginative people who use it are.
I'm a shocker with idioms. My husband keeps a list of my stuff ups and it keeps him continually in stitches.I tend to visualise what I am thinking so "walking on thin ice" became "walking on short legs"! "Put your money where your mouth is" became "Put your purse behind your mouth" Growing up in a country area where idioms are a dime a dozen, I tend to blend them unintentionally. "There wasn't enough room to swing a dead horse" and "He wouldn't eat a fly". My old boss who was a true bushie used to describe a female workmate who was a terrible driver in a very laconic drawl : "She couldn't drive a three inch nail up a cow's a**e with a frying pan". This was usually followed by,""she's as genuine as a three dollar note."
Jafa, that's very true about American TV influencing Aussie cliches...I can think of a few without stressing the old grey matter..but my favourite, a bit like your one-legged duck, is "does a bear s**t in the woods?"
joey01, love your old boss's saying. Another of my favourites, also to be said with a laconic drawl: 'as a wise man once said to me, there's a difference between scratching your a**e and tearing it to pieces'.
There is one saying that I just dont get......"He has his work cut out for him", so that one drives me crazy. Any ideas anyone? Our friend of ours, who is pushing 70, loves to say "she could eat an apple through a picket fence" about any poor soul whose front teeth may be prominent! And, I must say, I hate it when people tack on "unfortunately" at the end of a sentence gggrrrr
Well, Barneyb, it means a job that's a challenge. I'm thinking it may mean where the pieces are already cut out first, be they fabric, metal, etc, (pretty easy) and then the real challenge is to put them all together to create the final product. So, his work is cut out for him... and now the challenge begins... (just thinkin')
I cringe whenever I hear someone say 'to be honest...'. An honest person NEVER utters those words. Logic dictates that the utterer is normally untruthful.
My favorite - "think outside the box". Does anyone else see the irony here. How less original can you get in your thinking than use this tired adage? By the way I have to credit Aussies with the most colorful (or should I say colourful) sayings even if they make no sense to an outsider.
Or Pdiaco, to answer 'No problem.' - sounds sincere but to say it means there must have been a problem...
Vamrhein - it's true we Aussies have colourful sayings - ( a lot of which we probably inherited from the UK - but because they change with time, many of our ancestor's sayings make not much sense to today's generation. E.g I would doubt my kids would have any idea what "Don't come the raw prawn with me!" means. And, since Sydney doesn't have trams any more, "shot through like a Bondi tram" is probably meaningless to anyone under 25. This has been a great topic from Christine..would love to see something about euphemisms!
Enjoyed and laughed a lot at the blog so far. One of my husbands favorites is "as flat as a s**t carters hat". He said it refers to times before the current sewerage systems, enough said I think.
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The one I hate most is "When push comes to shove". For me, that is right up there with "The fact of the matter is", said by politicians when they are about to tell a lie!