Common sayings that are wrong or butchered

[sd455dan]

One I heard

Time wounds all heals. Instead of Time heals all wounds.

Sandra Bullock (Lenina Huxley) did a pretty good job on some old sayings in Demolition Man

 

[bcp]

"Don't count your bridges before you burn them."

"Nip it in the butt."

"I could care less."

Bruce

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Learned a new word, which I’ll probably forget just as quick.

 

[Jstpssng]

"I could care less."

This one really gets my goat for some reason; I never could understand why people use it in this context.
In essence they are saying the exact opposite of what they mean.

As an aside; the term "get his goat" is an old race horsing term. Apparently horse owners would keep a goat in the stall, to help keep the horse calm the night before a race. If another owner wanted an advantage they would steal the goat... hence the term.

 

[thepumpguysc]

I’ve heard:
Out like lightning..
Instead of:
Out like a light..

Another one that makes my skin crawl is:
Chimbly
Instead of
Chimney..

Here in the South there are no shortage of bastardized words.!!
Skrimps =Shrimp
Strewdriver =Screwdriver

 

[JasperFrank]

People use the phrase;" he turned 360 degrees." when what they meant was "..turned 180 degrees."
Older English folks rarely use the word, "NICE." In a sense, it is still a word in usage transition in some areas. In usage the word, nice, has had a 180 degree change in meaning. Originally it was an insult, meaning ignorant or stupid in action, or dress. Slowly, the meaning started to morph, into its current form of meaning, as a compliment.

Folks use the word "decimated" incorrectly all the time. It doesn't mean total destruction. Its means to lessen by 1/10th.

The military command, "LOCK and LOAD," is one that I didn't understand for a while. I thought it meant, "Off safety, (off the safety lock) and load." What it means, is be sure to lock your magazine, and load a round.

"Close, but no cigar," should only be used in the context that the task was near impossible in the first place.

The word I find most misused is the word, "Literally." It is used all the time instead of more correct words such as "Actually," "Realistically," "Conventionally," or "Metaphorically."

 

[orezok]

Bless your heart. It can have several meanings, especially to southerners

 

[Torvy]

My brother's CO called him on the carpet for saying someone was going off "half-cocked". She apparently did not know what it meant.

 

[lman]

I saw some of the Darrell Brooks trial and Mr. Brooks was axing a lot of questions. The word ask really got butchered during that trial by Mr. Brooks. Of course that was the least of his problems.

 

[JasperFrank]

We still say "Bless You," after someone has sneezed. This is a still existent and left over from the plague years of Europe.... When so many people were taken, so fast by disease, and a sneeze was a first symptom, and killed people so fast that a priest was not available. So it was up to common folk, to "Bless" people so that they could enter heaven.