Be Excellent & Party On

Thanks for visiting my page! Here’s a few things you should know about me.

Name: Dan/Daní/Dante

They/them

Autistic

Bisexual

Raised Catholic but currently a Deist (look it up)

New Englander (mixed Italian/Irish heritage)

Leftist; supporter of social democracy; Bachelors Degree in Political Science

The basement-dwelling manbabies who based their entire personalities off of hating the prequels eventually getting over it and moving on with their lives

The people who were still kids when the prequels came out and genuinely liked them all along growing up and being old enough to have a seat at the table

I have no trouble understanding figures of speech. I use them all the time. I always have. I understand why they're useful. If I've never heard one before, it's generally easy for me to puzzle out what it's supposed to mean based on the context.

That said, just because I understand what a figure of speech is supposed to mean, that doesn't mean it makes sense. Some of them are just nonsensical when you actually think about them for more than a few seconds. So, with your kind indulgence, I would like to channel my inner Giacchio and run through a list of phrases, sayings, idioms, metaphors, similes, and figures of speech that I find egregiously bizarre.

"The Sky Opened Up": Whenever there is a heavy rain, it's said that "the sky opened up". This never made any sense to me. When it's raining, our usually clear view of the blue sky is blocked off by clouds; wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the sky closed up?

"A Likely Story": You see this one a lot in cop shows and parodies thereof. Whenever the suspect of a crime gives an alibi the police/detectives/whoever don't quite believe, someone will respond "A likely story!" Hey, buddy, if the story by your own admission is likely to have happened, shouldn't that be all the more reason to believe it? "Well, Mr. Smith, your alibi is airtight and there is no possible way you could be guilty. GET THE PADDY WAGON!" I know we as a society really like to throw people in jail (so much for "land of the free", am I right?), but you're kinda saying the quiet part out loud when you admit that someone being provably innocent only makes you want to imprison them even more.

"Irish Goodbye": This is an old one, most likely inspired by old-timey racism: an Irish goodbye is the name for when someone leaves a social gathering without telling anyone or actually saying goodbye. Maybe I'm biased because of my own Irish roots, but it doesn't even make sense from the perspectives of people who hold those prejudices! Isn't the common stereotype about us that we're loud and boisterous? Why would you name something that involves not talking to people after us? If you're going to insult my heritage, at least be consistent about it!

"Crying Poor Mouth": Another idiom that sounds like it has prejudiced roots, to "cry poor mouth" is to complain habitually about being poor. Classist undertones aside, the phrase is a grammatical nightmare, with the inclusion of both "cry" and "mouth" in the same phrase making it come across as redundant because, in this context, they both refer to the same action. Taken on its face, the statement can read as someone crying about having a poor mouth, when they're actually complaining about their entire body being poor. I get the impression that the phrase started out as two separate ones — "crying poor" and "poor mouthing", maybe — and they got spliced together because too many people kept mixing their metaphors.

"Before it was Cool": You see this one a lot in relation to hipsters. Whenever someone does a mocking impression of a hipster, it will invariably lead to some variant of the sentence "I was into X before it was cool!" (I don't know if any actual hipster has ever said this, because I have never willingly spoken to one). Again, this never made sense to me. Since hipsters are known for their love of vintage and retro stuff, shouldn't it be "I was into X after it was cool?"

"Cutting Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face": We've all heard this one: it's a very common idiom referring to self-destructive actions taken in pursuit of revenge, where you harm yourself as much as or more than the target. One teensy problem: at no point in the idiom itself is that implied to be the case. The person described in it is only hurting themself — mutilating themself to get back at a specific part of their own body — with no mention of another person at all and no explanation of why this would hurt anyone else but the person doing it. A more apt version of the idiom might be "cutting off your dick to spite your ex".

"Quiet as a Church Mouse": The meaning of this simile is self-explanatory to be sure, but I can't help but nitpick: what is it about church mice specifically that makes them quieter than regular mice? Am I expected to believe that, because these mice live in a church, that automatically means they understand and respect the sanctity of God's domain enough not to make too much noise? Speaking as someone who grew up with pets all their life, I can assure you that just because an animal lives in a certain building, that does NOT mean it respects the humans' rules.