Whether it’s because you aren’t a native English speaker or because you once misheard something and have never been corrected, it’s easy to get a saying wrong and accidentally make it very funny.
They’ve been chatting about this on the AskUK subreddit after user BCurios asked this:
What accidentally hilarious misuses of a phrase or saying have you heard?
A friend who speaks English as a second language was getting cross because he felt he was being ignored as we made plans. He shouted ‘You think I know fuck nothing but I actually know fuck all!’. Didn’t quite mean what he thought and we lost it. I spent years thinking ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ was some surreal space-time continuum thing. What have you misunderstood or misused?’
And people were queuing up to share their favourite mistakes and malapropisms.
1.
‘A Greek friend as we were leaving Piraeus harbour looking back at the gorgeous sunset who said ‘Red sky, Shepherd’s pie’, very proud of her knowledge of English idiom.’
–Kalisuperfloof
2.
‘My friend used to say ‘Goodnight Vienetta’ And ‘its a doggy dog world’.’
–Glad_Driver2378
3.
‘My friend used to say ‘learning curb’ and when asked her to explain what it mean she was like, try not to trip yourself up on something you haven’t learnt yet.’
–BananaHairFood
4.
‘A team leader at my old job once put in the group Teams chat ‘don’t put him on a pedal stool’.’
–RainingBlood398
5.
‘A Portuguese guy I used to work with would ask ‘Are you taking a piss on me?’ (are you taking the piss out of me) if someone was winding him up.’
–Due_Research_2412
6.
‘My four-year-old insists that ‘tippity bottom’ is a thing because ‘tippity top’ is.’
–TimedDelivery
7.
‘My Greek friend who says ‘for fuck’s shake’.’
–banwe11
8.
‘My ex-husband used to text ‘maize well’ if I asked if we should do something.’
–RainingBlood398
9.
‘I taught English in Vietnam in my gap year to university students. They were a great bunch in general and were great at taking me and the other gap year guy on trips.
One time when we were on a road trip, one of the students was really excited to tell me that he knew the word for a pothole. The awkward bit was when he insisted it was called a cockhole – to avoid any misunderstanding, I even made him write it out to make sure I wasn’t mishearing it.
Managed to correct him to pothole without having to explain what cockhole actually means but I really struggled to keep a straight face throughout the whole thing.’
–teekay61
10.
‘My Romanian colleague constantly tells me he has ‘too many shits to do’.’
–Icy_Act1620
11.
‘I had a friend who was constantly mixing up sayings, phrases and metaphors. Some of his classics were:
‘Brinkering on the edge’
‘Don’t blow a gifthorse in the eye’ and…
‘I trust the Ghostbusters’ (when he was actually trying to reference ‘who you gonna call?’ – in his head it was ‘who you gonna trust?’)’
–YoureOnlyHuman
