What are commonly used idioms/metaphors that make no sense to anyone who knows about the topic they come from? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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What I mean is like for example, a person having "gravitational pull" or someone making a "quantum leap" makes no sense to anyone who knows about physics. Gravity is extremely weak and quantum leaps are tiny.

Or "David versus Goliath" to describe a huge underdoge makes no sense to anyone who knows about history, because nobody bringing a gun to a sword fight is going to be the underdog but that's essentially what David did.

I'm looking for more examples like that.

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[-] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago

Below par or under par. Used backwards by everyone. As a golfer, I want to be under par.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 5 days ago

Par comes from the Latin word meaning equal and that usage predates the golf term by 300 years.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

So sub-par doesn't really imply the golf way of being good, but actually means below equal/average? Then I'm fine with using below par as a negative.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

I've never seen sub-par used to mean positive, always as "under average".

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Same, but the implication was that it was supposedly being used incorrectly, but then it turns out it is being used correctly after all.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 5 days ago

Aren’t we talking about modern idioms here?

this post was submitted on 25 May 2025

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