Idiotsms

After 49 years I think I have a good grasp of the English language. I generally make myself understood and I don't have to reach too far to understand what it is I'm hearing. And then I run into a phrase like "I'm not blowing smoke up your ass" and I have to mentally stop the conversation while I play the tape back to figure out whattheheck that means.

"I'm not blowing smoke up your ass."

Who said that in the first place? Who says it now with a straight face? Who looked at all the words offered in the language and thought, "Wow, this really conveys what it is I'm trying to say!"

Same with "Piss up a rope." What does that mean anyway? I know what it intends, but what does it mean? Is it more user friendly than, say, "Go Away" or even "Kiss Off." I don't think so.

Gads, I know I'm old when some of these phrases are more idiot than idiom.

As long as my mind is in wander mode, I also encountered "meteoric rise" in the newspaper this week. Don't meteors fall? Did some writer decide this was a tit for tat (and whatthehell is tit for tat. Tits I know, tats I'm not so sure about) thing? If someone had a meteoric fall into obscurity then someone else could surely have a meteoric rise to fame?

"At the end of your rope." "One foot in the grave." Those are implicit, maybe even explicit with normal cognition. I even get "rainin' like a cow pissin' on a flat rock." It makes sense. I can visualize it. The others? They're all Greek to me.