Comments on: more administrative notes

By: Christopher

Christopher — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:04:25 +0000

Here’s a classic one I haven’t seen mentioned yet:

“X is the Yest Z on this side of the Mississippi”

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:01:07 +0000

One I haven’t seen mentioned is “Friends don’t let friends do X”, or simply “Friends don’t let friends X” as X need not be a construction using the verb do. It originated, of course, in “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk”. A Google search yields 400k results, where X = use Windows, use camera phones, join Myspace…

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:12:49 +0000

How about “Xzilla”

X can be … well quite a few things (bride, bed, bud, cat, dog, hog, cow, moth, car, bike, cock, blob, …)

By: Ouro

Ouro — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:48:04 +0000

“X is not a crime” possible first appearance as “Poverty is not a crime”, now spread to bumper stickers as “Skateboarding is not a crime”.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:09:12 +0000

If you look up X in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Y in the margin.

I haven’t heard this one much lately, but it used to be big (at least in my corner of the world) a couple of decades ago.

By: Max

Max — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:05:28 +0000

My current most-hated phrase: [number] [nouns] to [verb] before you die. I don’t know where it’s come from but it still gets to me every time I see it. (I am based in the UK … perhaps it isn’t so endemic in the States?)

By: David Fried

David Fried — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:56:04 +0000

Two suggestions, if you’re willing to look at them:

Someone says “It was really hot [ or cold, or whatever] today. Response: “How hot was it?” “It was so hot that. . . [joke follows].” Trivial, but a regular routine on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for many years, and people are still doing it. The point is in the tone adopted.

A recent one that has become annoyingly ubiquitous. The lead-in is something like: “It’s a fine thing to [have milk in your coffee. Lemon], not so much.” Of course, the “not so much” at the end is the snowclone.

By: snowclones

snowclones — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:12:29 +0000

I mean, if you have a snowclone, look for it here, and if you don’t see it, then send it over. But I think I should just let people make suggestions as they will, and I’ll deal with that as I go.

Thanks! I don’t think I’ve seen that one yet. Any ideas of its origin?

By: Dmitry

Dmitry — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:40:42 +0000

So, I’m confused. Don’t send suggestions, but if you do – search the site first? Anyway, assuming a favorable interpretation of the above, I have one to suggest:

“his X was his undoing”.

I guess, in this case X = insolence