As you may know, in the biggest chapter of our book Phil and I give an insight into what the world would be like if we all took everyday sayings literally. The book was written purely for comedy value, but a conversation I recently overheard shows that some people actually DO take everyday sayings literally.
As two friends were walking along, one said to the other: “…and he bumped into her. Well, he didn’t bump into her; she was sitting down.”
If you’d heard that first-hand I’m sure you’d be clear, as I was, that there wasn’t really a ‘bump’, it’s just that the two people met unexpectedly. The speaker thought otherwise and needed to be sure that if we were acting out the story in our minds the characters were physically positioned so that they could bump if they wanted to! Bless!
Almost apologetically she admitted that they couldn’t possibly have bumped if one of them was sitting down. I didn’t have the heart to interrupt and point out that if only she was sitting down, he could still have bumped into her.
When using an everyday saying, we advise you not to assume it’s being taken literally. Next we’ll be hearing things like: “It’ll cost a bomb. Well, that might not be true because I’m not involved in the munitions industry so don’t know the going rate for bombs. I’m so sorry I said that.”
Once you’ve said something, let sleeping dogs lie. Well, you can wake them up if you want to. And you can let awake dogs tell lies as well if you must.
Steve
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