DEAR RICHARD: I have a difficult time when people say, “I’m outa here” when they are still right here. If they were truly “outa here,” they would be somewhere else and would not be able to speak in the present tense. It makes no sense to talk to people about the correct tense, because, what the heck is tense anyway? -Allen Stanko, Alpine
Thank you, Allen, for sharing a perfect example of how we English speakers are constantly standing meaning on its head. Let’s look at a number of familiar English words and phrases that turn out to mean something very different from what we think they mean:
“A near miss” is, in reality, a collision. A close call is actually “a near hit.”
“I could care less.” If you could care less, then you must care at least a little bit. What you really mean is “I couldn’t care less.”
Whenever people tell me, “I really miss not seeing you.” I feel like responding, “All right, I’ll leave!” Here speakers throw in a gratuitous negative, “not,” even though “I really miss seeing you” is what they really mean.
“The movie kept me literally glued to my seat.” The chances of our buttocks being literally epoxied to a seat are about as small as the chances of our literally rolling in the aisles while watching a funny movie or literally drowning in tears while watching a sad one.
“My idea fell between the cracks.” If something fell between the cracks, didn’t it land smack on the floor? Shouldn’t that be “my idea fell into the cracks”?
“A hot water heater.” Who heats hot water?
“A hot cup of coffee.” Here again the English language gets us in hot water. Who cares if the cup is hot? Surely we mean “a cup of hot coffee.”
Aren’t “doughnut holes” really “doughnut balls”? The hole is what’s left in the original doughnut.
“I got caught in one of the biggest traffic bottlenecks of the year.” The bigger the bottleneck, the more freely the contents of the bottle flow through it. To be true to the metaphor, we should say, “I got caught in one of the smallest bottlenecks of the year.”
“I lucked out” sounds as if you’re out of luck. Don’t you mean “I lucked in”?
For most people, “I slept like a baby” means “I slept soundly,” but most babies wake up every two hours and cry.
“It’s neither here nor there.” Then where is it?
“I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.” Let the word go forth to the four corners of the earth that the earth doesn’t have any ends.
Why do we call it “newsprint” when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it “a newspaper”? And will newspapers still be called newspapers when they go completely electronic?
“I put on my shoes and socks.” This is an exceedingly difficult maneuver. We put on our socks first, then our shoes.
“To go back and forth.” Clearly, one must go forth before one goes back.
“A hit-and-run play.” If you know your baseball, you know that the sequence constitutes “a run-and-hit play.”
“I want to have my cake and eat it too.” Shouldn’t this timeworn cliché be “I want to eat my cake and have it, too”? Isn’t the logical sequence that one hopes to eat the cake and still possess it?
“Elevator.” It’s true that an elevator does elevate you to higher floors, but how do you get back to the lower floors on an elevator?
“After dark.” Isn’t “after dark” actually “after light”?
“Daylight saving time.” Not a single second of daylight is saved by this ploy. And, by the way, it’s not “daylight savings time.” We’re not talking about a bank here.
“Preplan,” “preboard,” “preheat,” and “prerecord.” Aren’t people who do this simply planning, boarding, heating, and recording? Who needs the pretentious prefix? I have even seen shows “prerecorded before a live audience,” certainly preferable to prerecording before a dead audience.
“May the best team win.” Usually there are only two teams in the contest.
“Expect the unexpected.” If you expect it, it’s not unexpected.
Okay, readers. I’m outta here!
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This coming Monday, my celestial odometer will flip over to 87 years. Studies show that the more birthdays you have, the longer you live. To those who say that “age is just a number,” I, as a professional linguist, say that “age is not a number. It’s a word!”
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