Two figures of speech that I hate

[xiphias]

There are, of course, competing homilies -- you should look before you strike while the iron is hot, because he who hesitates measures twice and cuts once. But I'm talking about sayings that are just plain WRONG on their face.

For the record -- given a choice, I DON'T measure, and rather line the piece up with where I want it to go, draw a mark, then cut along the mark. I don't ACTUALLY know if the board is 4' 9 1/2" or 4' 10" or whatever -- all I know is that it's the same length as the place that it's supposed to fit. So I actually "measure never and cut until it fits", but "measure twice and cut once" isn't WRONG -- it's just useful in different circumstances. (If I was cutting the piece elsewhere, for instance, and bringing it over, that's how I'd do it, for instance.)

1. "Fight fire with fire."

No. Don't. Fight fire with WATER. Or maybe a CO2 extinguisher. A bucket of dirt and a shovel. Halon fire suppression systems. Stuff like that. But, c'mon. There ARE specific, limited conditions in which controlled back burns clear out fuel to prevent fires from spreading. But it really shouldn't be your go-to solution.

2. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

You ever tried? If you've got a fruit fly trap, you know what you bait it with? Vinegar. Not honey. Because flies don't LIKE honey. Every once in a while, a fly will land in honey and get stuck, but they don't seek it out. Vinegar, on the other hand is CRAZY addictive to fruit flies. They seek out, y'know, rotting fruit. Which turns into vinegar. Which is what they like. Not honey.

I'm sure I could come up with others. Any other favorites?

Comments

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

"The squeaky wheel gets the most grease".

I'm not a mechanical sort of person, so maybe this is actually true. I just really really hate it when people apply it to themselves and their Godzilla-given right to kvetch.

(Icon, and general sentiment, related to the most recent post in my own journal.)

[holyhippie]

On the 'you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar' - not only is it false, I generally find it gets used by someone who has just felt like they have been mistreated. I've responded in one instance 'Honey left to ferment turns into vinegar' - meaning, that I tried to make a request in a timely and polite manner, but you ignored it and let the request sit. So I got mean.

[dave riba (from livejournal.com)]

Interesting. Had not really thought of the etymology of those sayings until you brought it up.
A quick superficial search brings up this origin theory

Shakespeare used the idea in 1595 in King John when he wrote, "Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire; / Threaten the threatener and outface the brow / Of bragging horror." However, Shakespeare did not actually use the phrase "fight fire with fire."

So, it is not FIGHT fire with fire, it is BE fire with fire -- eg if you are threatened, threaten back. Makes much more sense

You asked for other sayings?
A stitch in time saves nine.
Lis uses a stapler ...

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I hate "you can't have your cake and eat it too." Partially because I find the basic sentiment annoying, but mostly because 1. eating cake is the whole point of having cake--what are you going to do with it if you don't eat it? enshrine it on an altar? 2. I can't imagine a more complete way of "having" anything than by eating and digesting it. After you've eaten that cake, it is yours, in every sense of the word--nobody can steal it from you, and (hopefully) nobody wants to.

[cos]

I think the "catch more flies with honey than vinegar" saying is actually getting its sense across correctly through being inaccurate, because what vinegar is to flies maps to what honey is to us while what honey is to flies maps to what vinegar is to us. IMO this makes it cleverly ironic, and a good example of the difference between truth and facts, or between information and data.

(Whether it's actually true and applicable in a given situation, is a different matter)

[jazzfish]

I've been unable to find it with a cursory search, but once on a time I stumbled over a list of reversed cliches:

"He who is last, hesitates."
"People who throw stones shouldn't live in glass houses."
"If you're not paying attention, you're not outraged."
Et cetera. Amusing how many of them still work.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I actually did try once to catch flies with honey and vinegar. Not fruit flies, just regular flies. I caught one with honey, and none with vinegar. So the saying was technically true in my case, but not really useful, since one did not make a dent in the large number of flies I was trying to get rid of.

I always assumed "fight fire with fire" was referring to controlled burns.