Tag Archives: clichés

Freak Speak

Finally let’s get this straight/ These expressions are out-of-date

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“Humor” Post #129 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping Middle School blogger –

You’re reading this so you probably know I like to write. Usually I try to be funny. But today’s post is about a few expressions I hear pretty often and I can’t figure out why they’re still used. I’m not going to do my usual thing and call them stupid. Let’s just call them “out-of-date” and say they should be retired. So here they are:

1. DIAL A NUMBER:  I don’t think anyone’s dialed a number in what — 10 or 20 years? I know I never have. A lot of kids don’t even know what a phone with a dial looks like (unless they watch old movies). But what word should replace it? Should we “press a number,” “punch a number,” “hit a number”? You got me. I know in Spanish it’s something like “oprime” because the computerized voice on a phone says, “Oprime dos.” But I don’t think “oprime” will be a big hit with most people.

2. To TAPE something or “LET’S LOOK AT THE TAPE.”:  I just heard Dr. Phil say that second expression on his show the other day. Or people will talk about “taping a conversation.” But there isn’t any tape involved anymore, is there? That was when people actually had “tape recorders,” not “digital voice recorders” or DVD players. So what’s the new term going to be? Obviously Dr. Phil can say, “Let’s look at the video.” Maybe I’ll have to get in touch with him about that. I’m sure he’d take my call. (Joke.)

3. My grandfather still uses the expression “BOOB TUBE” for the TV. That means it’s for dumb people. Okay, that’s fine, but TVs haven’t had any tubes in them for a bunch of years. Yes, I know if you have an ancient computer screen that weighs maybe forty pounds or a giant TV that weighs over 100 pounds, those probably have picture tubes in them. But any flat screen doesn’t work by tubes, does it? But “BOOB LED” doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? So let’s say Adios to “boob tube.”

4. LIKE A BROKEN RECORD:  That means something keeps getting repeated the way an old scratched record would get stuck on the same note. But almost no one has records anymore. (And yes, I know Justin Timberlake has a vinyl version of his latest CD.) But why hasn’t that expression been replaced by “like a scratched CD”? I’ve heard CDs repeat a note over and over till it drives you nuts. Just the other day, I had one stick on the word “what.” It went “wha-wha-wha-wha-wha” for about 20 seconds till I could take out the CD and clean it. Luckily that worked or I might have gone batty. I’m just saying that old expression should go the way of the dinosaurs: extinct.

Here’s something I just thought of. I wonder how long it’ll be before CDs disappear. Oh, I know they won’t totally disappear, but already nobody carries around CDs anymore, do they? They’ll become like records. And record stores.

5. Speaking of music, why do they still call new releases “ALBUMS”? There haven’t been any albums for like 70 years or more. It took me forever to find a decent picture of one. Finally I got this photo at www.popscreen.com of a 4-record-album by Eddy Duchin, who made music in the 1930s. See all the records in there. (I had to look him up at Wikipedia ’cause I’d never heard of him.)

A real record album
This is what a real record album looks like.

Back then, they could only fit about 5 or 10 minutes of music on each side of a record. So they had to have albums that looked like photo albums to hold all the records you needed for something that fits on a CD or a thumb drive now.

Anyway, that’s all I got for today. I guess it’s not any kind of humor post, but I hope it got you thinking.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude
(who must not be in the happiest mood),
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

I wish I was as sick as a dog! That would be some sweet action!

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Humor Post #54 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Here’s another of those stupidissimo  expressions you hear all the time: sick as a dog. What’s with that piece of rot? Daniel has a dog, a collie named Lance. Talk about cool. You can see him doing a magic trick here. Now Lance is about as regular a dog as you can find and one thing that’s easy to say about Lance — he hardly ever gets sick. He goes to the vet like once or twice every year, once for his yearly checkup and shots and once to get shaved for the summer. Almost never for being sick. (Though he did have a bad case of fleas once, thanks to Daniel being too careless, or too cheap, to put flea stuff on him.) Anyway, I can safely say I wish I was as sick as Lance. Man, I’d put doctors out of business!

Now I know there will be a few of you who look up the phrase and you’ll write to say, “Oh, you stupid Crankenfuss, People say that because dogs will eat almost anything and then when they eat something bad for them, they throw up. That’s where the expression comes from.” And I’d fire right back at you, “Fair enough, Bullet Head, but it’s still a dumb expression because whenever I see a dog throw up, he’s over it in about 10 seconds. They get rid of the bad stuff inside and then they’re ready to go on with their walk. I’ve seen it many times. Usually when humans throw up, they call in sick and stay home, and lots of them moan and whine for hours. Not Lance. Within a few minutes, he’s ready to eat again. Sometimes he even wants to eat his own barf! Yeah, that’s pretty sick, I know, but it’s still a sign he’s got a positive attitude. A sure sign of good health, I’d say.”

And on top of all that, he can eat anything he likes and he never ever gets fat. How many of the rest of us can say that?

So here are a few alternatives I’ve come up with for “sick as a dog,” every one of them way more accurate. Feel free to use them. You don’t even have to give me credit.
— Sick as a guy with bubonic plague (Look it up. Those buboes were beyond y-e-c-c-h-h!)
— Sick as an asparagus eater
— Sick as someone who’s forced to listen to Justin Bieber for 5 hours
— Sick as a zombie with the flu (See, they’re already dead, ugly, and starving, and then they get the flu on top of that. That’s gotta hurt!)

And while we’re in this fascinating conversation about dog barf and other sicko stuff, how about that beaut “I’m feeling under the weather”? Hello! Aren’t we all under the weather? Okay maybe if you’re an astronaut or a space alien, you’re not, but by definition the rest of us are. So there’s another cliché to stay clear of.

That’s enough for today. More to come within two days.

From Your Dude with a ‘Tude,
your thinker who’s no stinker,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Hungry as a horse? Oh, we can do better than that!

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Humor Post #53 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

This one’ll be kinda short so here goes.
What’s with these silly sayings we use all the time? I don’t know whether to call them clichés or expressions or whatever they are; all I know is a lot of them are — how shall I put this nicely? — DUMB, DUMB, DUMB! Like today, we’re on our way to lunch and Joe (someone you probably don’t know) says, “I gotta get to the cafeteria. I’m as hungry as a horse.” Now nothing against Joe or anything. He’s not dumb or anything, but why do people say “hungry as a horse”? Now I got nothing against horses either but are they hungrier than other animals? (Same question with “hungry as a bear”.) Why didn’t Joe say, “I’m as hungry as a teenager”? Now any parent will tell you that’s way more accurate cause they’re always complaining about how much their kids eat. We can’t help it; we’re having our growth spurt. (BTW, I wish mine would start spurting a lot more. Like a geyser would be nice. Then maybe I’d be better in basketball.)

I looked up which animals eat the most and there’s lots of stuff out there, but it seems that hummingbirds are definitely near the top of the list. One site says they eat 2/3 of their weight each day. Most of it is sugar. Wow, who wouldn’t go for that? But they’re also so hungry they eat lots of bugs. Now that’s HUNGRY with a capital H and a U and an N and … Oh, you get the picture. Another site, named Birdola, of all things, says hummingbirds eat TWICE their weight each day. And they eat every 10 minutes!! Now let’s see a horse do that! The horse would have to eat like 500 or 1000 pounds of food a day. Hay, that’s a lot! Ha, ha, get it? Okay, I know it’s dumb.

I spent some time thinking of other dumbissimo clichés like that one and it wasn’t too hard. If you feel like, you can even send me one and I’ll use it if I haven’t thought of it yet. So get ready for a barrage of bull hockey in the next week or two. There’s a lot of expressions that need to be 187ed. Okay, if that’s too strong for you, how about “put out to pasture”?

Thanks for listening and remember, I’m always out here, lookin’ out for ya’.

Note: You know the real reason I’m stopping right now? I have to raid the refrigerator cause I’m hungry as a hummingbird.

from Dr. Crankenfuss,
The Dude with the ‘Tude