Figuring Out Our Funny Phrases

The English language has a plethora of weird sayings. Some of their meanings are intuitive. "Blood is thicker than water" is an obvious metaphor for the strong bonds of family. Some have meanings hidden a little deeper, but their backstories make sense. "Caught red handed" refers to a time when a murderer, or a sheep thief, literally needed blood on their hands to prove their guilt. 

Other phrases are just batshit insane. Speaking of batshit insane, why do we say batshit insane? Does guano cause insanity? It may have turned Jim Carrey into an anti-vaxxer nutcase, but how is it such a ubiquitous phrase? I wouldn't know batshit from cat shit if it fell on my head (although that would have to be a big cat) but I know when someone is batshit crazy.

Anyways, that's the type of phrase I'm talking about here. The batshit crazy or just plain odd phrases we all know and have probably used without really thinking about what the hell they mean. Phrases like...


Shoot the shit
"We just sat around shooting the shit." Why does that refer to talking? I get talking shit, but why are you shooting shit? What purpose does that serve? Was that a thing back in the day? People just sat around shooting at piles of dog shit on their lawn, laughing it up. Is that what we did before the internet? Maybe it's "shooting" the shit because for Americans, shooting is as natural as talking? That I certainly believe. Everything is "shooting." I'm gonna shoot up the road and go see the Smiths. Aww, shoot! Shoot your shot. Shoot the shit.
Obsessed much, America?


Butter them up
Why? Someone is supposed to like that? Are they Kramer? What purpose could it possibly serve. other than to make Newman hungry? Even if I wanted butter all over me, I don't want some stranger rubbing it on me just to get some favor in return. Margarine, maybe, but not butter. That'd be weird.  

Let the cat out of the bag 
Why is it a bad thing when someone lets the cat out of the bag? Why was it in the bag in the first place? What were you going to do with it? You were gonna drown it in a river weren't you? Let the damn cat out of the bag! Unless it's the cat that shit on my head earlier. If it is, you're gonna need a pretty big bag. 


Don't toss the baby out with the bath water
Was this ever really a concern? Did people forget to remove a living child from the bathtub before dumping it out the window onto the shit-and-dirty-bath-water-strewn streets? Wait, they did?! Goddamn the past sucked. 

Kick the bucket
Was there just an overabundance of buckets everywhere, so many that people were just tripping all over them and dying? Maybe the elderly and infirm really hated buckets and they would just kick every bucket they saw; soon after they would keel over, and people made the assumption that kicking the bucket caused their deaths. Maybe the bucket was the cause? Were old buckets really heavy or laced with lead? Did kicking buckets lead to a slow death from lead poisoning? That's horrible. What a horrible saying. 


Put your best foot forward
Well, I only have two feet, so this shouldn't be hard. But which one is my best? I jump with my left foot to dunk do sick layups, but I use my right for driving, and I'm right handed. I can do the Daniel-san crane kick with either foot. Shit. Does it really matter that much? I mean, the other foot is coming right behind it, like immediately. Maybe i should just hop? Forget it, I'm just gonna stay in bed to be safe.


Bury the hatchet
This always makes me visualize a person burying a hatchet in someone else's head, but I think it means the opposite. Getting over past grievances. Burying a disagreement. But does that solve the problem, or are you just covering it up? Did the hatchet cause the problem? Are you burying a murder weapon? I guess that's good advice...for murderers. 
Maybe you're burying the hatchet so you won't murder anyone? If that's the case, are you gonna bury all the weapons in the house? And what if you need that hatchet for non-murdery hatchet activities? Seems like a waste of a good hatchet.


Chip on your shoulder
This means someone is angry, but why would I be mad if I have a chip on my shoulder? Chocolate chip or potato chip, I'm happy. Unless it's Sour Cream and Onion or something gross like that. Hell I wouldn't even ask how it got there, I'd just be grateful. 
Maybe it's chip as in cow chip? Like cow shit? Then I'd be mad for sure. First a giant cat shits on my head and now a cow shits on my shoulder? Why does this keep happening? Seriously, though, if this did happen to me on a regular basis, I'd be pissed, but I would have avoided farms altogether after the first time, before it became a damn common idiom. 


I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

Kill Your Thoughts aka Editing

The hardest thing about writing is editing. Ok, the hardest thing is getting started. No, the hardest thing about writing is research. Actually...

You get the point. There is nothing easy about writing. There are so many facets to writing, and all of them are important in creating a satisfactory finished product. Each stage of the writing process contains a variety of difficulties; editing is just the final stage, and the most important.

Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a writer. What I never wanted to be was an editor, and nobody told me that all writers are editors.

All aspects of writing are frustrating, but editing is by far the most humbling. One misconception of writers is that they are "natural" and "born to be a writer." I disagree wholeheartedly; they may enjoy it more than those who don't write, but it never comes easy. It's hard work coming up with ideas and it's even harder getting those ideas down in a way that makes sense to others and expresses your true sentiments. So after all that work, the last thing you want to do is change the majority of it. You just busted your ass writing something, you don't want to reread it, you don't want to work on it anymore, and you definitely don't want to admit that it sucks.

Yet that is exactly what you need to do. When you're a professional writer, you have an editor and a lot of experience dealing with criticism and harsh revisions. As a student, you have the benefit of a teacher helping you edit, and even if the teachers' critiques are harsher than you expect, in a classroom there is an understanding that you will be judged on your work. Even in those situations, however, self-editing is still vital, and it can be an exercise in self-loathing and masochism. Sometimes you craft what you think is a perfect sentence, only to realize it doesn't fit with the rest of your paragraph, and you need the courage to get rid of that beautifully constructed combination of words. If you're honest, you will tear your own work to shreds, giving yourself even more work. It's a Sysiphean task, which is why I love it.

My first experience with the humbling editing process was my 8th grade graduation. I was tasked with making a speech by the principal of my elementary/middle school, Dr. Zoe Athanson (RIP). I spent several days and nights putting together a groundbreaking, mindblowing speech that would have my classmates and their families alternating between fits of crippling laughter and uncontrollable crying. I brought it to her office a few days before graduation with a cheesy grin, full of pride and self worth. She had me sit down in her office while she read it. She took out a pen and quietly, methodically, started scribbling, draining my self esteem with each swipe of her pen. After about 10 minutes, she gave it back to me, completely changed. The general ideas were the same, but the wording and structure were completely different. I didn't even recognize my own writing. Without telling me outright, her edits basically told me, "You don't want to embarrass yourself out there, so here's something more acceptable."

It stung a little bit. I figured she considered me a good writer since she asked me to write something, yet she clearly thought I was garbage.

After I got over my hurt feelings, the experience had a strange effect on me. I always considered myself a good writer (the qualifications included: writing on my own time) but this gave me a glimpse at reality. Just because you do a thing and you like doing that thing doesn't mean you do that thing well. I was hurt by her revisions, but the experience made me want to do better. I didn't want to be passing off her work as my own. I felt bad saying someone else's words; okay, I felt bad until the speech, then I owned it. Staring at all the people staring at me, I was just happy as hell not to be reading the crap I wrote.

In actuality, she had simply edited my paper, helping the golden nuggets that were my ideas shine through more clearly. I have since learned to do that more on my own, and I realized that my experience was something that all writers must face. At some point we have to confront the fact that we are not that good, and we need to improve. That's as hard a reality to accept in writing as it is in life.

I also learned how much editors actually do for writers. Some classic writers are rumored to have been extremely sloppy; are we really idolizing their work or the work of their editors? A lot of writers are upfront about how much their editors do for them; on the other hand, other writers are almost obsessive compulsive about editing their own work, never letting more than a few people see it until it is "perfect" in their minds.

Regardless, all writers realize the importance of editing,whether they do it themselves or with outside assistance. It is important to remember that revising is a separate mental process from creating, which is why it helps to have someone else edit your work at some point in the process. It's also why many editors are not the best writers and vice versa. Editing and creating use two completely different parts of the brain. It is impossible (well, certainly not productive, anyway) to edit while writing. Get everything out on paper, no matter how it sounds, then go back and work on it. That's the greatest part about a first draft: it can be complete trash and eventually turn into a classic.

 

First draft of George Orwell's 1984.

When you set out to write, remember James Thurber's words: "Don't get it right, get it written." You can get it right eventually, but you have to get it down, get it out there. We're all great writers in our heads, but nobody can read your mind. As Margaret Atwood said, "If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word." The greatest thing about writing is that you don't have to get it perfect the first time, or even second time, because there is the implicit agreement that you make when you start writing that you will respect the work, and yourself, enough to revise until it is right.

Or until you are absolutely sick of it and ready to set fire to your computer. That's when you know you are becoming a writer.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.