Best Opaque Idioms

Innocent Bystander posted:

Sauce first.

Yeh but,  do you classify ketchup as sauce.   And were do you source your sauce from ?? 

‘Caught between two stools’ is never a nice place to be.

G

Mike-B posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Sauce first.

Yeh but,  do you classify ketchup as sauce.   And were do you source your sauce from ?? 

As with music it is all a matter of taste: To me, bottled tomato ketchup is like pop’ music: many people like it, but is complete turn-off to me.

Instead, being a re-sauceful person, first and foremost, before anything else, I tastefully source the number 1 tastiest, sauciest sauce ingredients, where possible getting them direct from source. After ripping (aka blending) it all goes in the NAS (Non-stick Aluminium Saucepan), where it is  rendered, ready to serve to the DAC (Decorously Arranged Chops)... 

notnaim man posted:

From WorldWideWords

Tenter comes from the Latin tendere, to stretch, via a French intermediate. The word has been in the language since the fourteenth century, and on tenters soon after became a phrase meaning painful anxiety. The exact phrase on tenterhooks seems first to have been used by Tobias Smollett in Roderick Random in 1748.

What did we do before the internet and search engines?

 

The internet can’t always be relied on to be correct.

I’ve just searched for the meaning and origin of the word Stenter. (the modern mechanised version of the tenter, derived from the words Super Tenter).

The online dictionaries don’t adequately explain what a stenter is, and are totally wrong concerning the origin.

I’ve just emailed Oxford Dictionaries, putting them right.

Don’t take someone who uses opaque idioms too seriously. I’m sure they are only pulling your leg.

An Iranian friend just told me that his ex was "sorry like a dog" after he left her. It's not English, and I don't suppose it's even British, but it's vivid.

"Never mind the bollocks."

Once, on a campsite, my wife noticed a full ashtray which someone had left outside. It was half full of rainwater and looked nasty. She took one look at it, and said, 'Ugh, look at those disgusting, filthy fag butts!' We were in Colorado, and for some reason, the locals seemed to find this hilarious.  

Don Atkinson posted:

.... Bob's your uncle......

No I'm not.  Oh God what has my little brother been up to?

Where there's muck there's brass.

Many a mickle makes a muckle.