I was thinking about the phrase ‘The pot calling the kettle black’. It comes from a time where cooking was done over open fires and cookware would become visibly ashy. (Fun fact: It first appears and was perhaps coined by Cervantes in Don Quixote!)
What are some other idioms that have lost their literal connection to time? What would be a good modern replacement?
I think the outdated/obsolete nature of terms in many idioms is what makes them charming.
It also makes it pretty clear you aren’t using them in a literal sense. If your idioms are too new/unfamiliar and your terminology is too modern/relevant then people might just think you’re being literal and not idiomatic.
In my home country they say “Cheap as Onions” (eq in English : Cheap as Dirt)
Looking at the prices on Onions nowadays …
In Italy, when something is expensive, we say that it’s salted. Because salt was expensive. Hasn’t been for a while but the word is still there!
“Worth ones salt” is older and sort of Italian (Roman)
Same in Germany
A stitch in time saves nine.
This refers to a time when clothes were hard to come by and often homemade. If they tore, a small tear could be fixed with one stitch of needle and thread, but if let go too long, it would take many more stitches to repair a bigger rip.
Change your oil (or tires) in time, or change your car.
This is still relevant, please take care of your clothes.
Eating a dead horse - not unless you buy the budget beef mince at Tesco
Read like rabbits - rabbits can’t read or even hold books
Nip it in the butt - that’s sexual assault, you’re not allowed to do that any more
Get down off your high horse - you’re not allowed to get animals high either
Kids should be shorn and not herd - goats have hair, not wool, and can’t be shorn. Their natural tendency to herd is a difficult behaviour to break.
Under the weather - unless you’re a pilot you’re going to be under the weather most of the time
A blessing in the skies - unless your bishop is a pilot too, that’s not going to happen.
Fight off more than you can chew - I don’t know where to start with this one,
Boneappletea
I always thought it was “nip it in the bud” where a bud is the early stage of a plants development / before the flower emerges on a flower. So meaning “kill it before it grows larger and that becomes harder”
Has to be trolling because they are all wrong.
Under the weather is right.
And get off your high horse is right too. So the whole thing was a weird comment, leaving the readers uncertain if OP was trolling or just…yeah mostly trolling.
They probably messed that one up. I wonder how they meant to mangle it?
You almost got me.
surely there’s a /s or a trollface i’m missing
I’m not pulling your Greg, if that’s what you mean.
You leave my Greg alone. He’s perfectly capable pulling himself & if he needs help I have gloves!
I was half expecting that to have been posted by LadyMondegreen
deleted by creator
“Avoiding things like the plague” because people did not actually seem to want to avoid the plague last time around.
Those that failed to avoid actual plagues often lived only long enough to regret it.
This was true also in the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. And there were anti-vaxxers even then.
Too soon.
Or not, really.
We’re the ones who survived, we’re allowed to joke about it
Oh, I didn’t say not to joke about it. I just really miss Herman Cain, OK?
/s you animals.
Avoid things like the crypto xD or the AI slop to make it super modern
Oh, man, when it comes to nautical idioms, I could go on all day. There are so many, and they’ve lost their literal connections so thoroughly, you probably don’t even think of some of them as idioms. A few that occur to me immediately:
- taken aback (wind on the wrong side of the sails)
- give a wide berth (extra space for a vessel to maneuver)
- leeway (unwanted downwind slippage of the vessel when in motion)
- above board (on deck, the board being the section of the hull running fore and aft just above the water line)
- onboard (to load onto the deck of the ship)
- go by the board (to fall off of the ship into the water, passing the board on the way)
- hand over fist (two-handed motion to pull in sails, ropes, etc. as quickly as possible)
- high and dry (above the tide line)
- loose cannon (a gun insufficiently secured would cause havoc on a warship when fired, or as the ship rolled in waves)
Honestly, I’m not sure that I want modern equivalents, since many are so rich in imagery.
Don’t forget “I like the cut of your jib”
Batten down the hatches too.
Three sheets to the wind!
Honestly, I’m not sure that I want modern equivalents, since many are so rich in imagery.
I do love the imagery of “loose Canon”, and by “love” I mean that as it’s been described and depicted, it’s a truly horrifying situation. So it makes for a really visceral image.
A quick aside: there’s this murder mystery/logic puzzle game called “the Return of the Obra Dinn” that takes place on a merchant ship. The game is basically like a series of still frame dioramas that you have to analyze and figure out what’s going on. There’s a particularly striking scene with a cannon which breaks loose from its chains and several unfortunate sailors. It took me a long time to actually find the third sailor in the scene… (There wasn’t a lot left)
Also today I was literally at the bitter end anchoring a boat with almost all of the available chain.
Very nice! Amazing how ingrained they’ve become. “That new recruit is a car without brakes” just doesn’t ring the same does it?
I thought “by the boards” referred to losing the mast specifically snapped off right at the deck.
I don’t think it’s the char/open fire but rather that both pot a d kettle would be made of the same black cast iron
in our holiday house we still cook on an iron stove. we also installed a small gas burner, because that stove is the heating system for all the 3 small rooms. it gets really hot - so usually you don’t want to use it during summer.
but the original pans are out of copper. they have a complex shape so, if you remove the cooking top, you can hang them directly into the fire. cast iron surely was and still is a thing. but i will always choose copper over cast iron for something i want hot quickly. i would bet that most kettles where made out of something thin and conductive, so your water is hot quicker.
all our copper is black from the sud.
Alternatively, shiny kettle and the pot sees its own black reflection in it.
(But yeah, I assumed they’re both black/cast iron)
“Have your cake and eat it too” doesn’t really make sense. Cake is not rare or expensive enough that simply possessing it feels good. If you have cake, all you want is to eat it.
The italian version, “you want a full barrel and drunk wife” illustrates the same situation much more clearly.
I’m only half joking when I say this could be the modern replacement. I’ve caught both myself and the S.O. using “no take only throw” in conversation, often about unreasonably demanding people.
That’s because it’s backwards. Should be “eat your cake and have it too”
Edit: While that preserves the form and is recognizable as the common saying, it makes the meaning clearer if phrased as “Eat your cake and still have it”.
Thank you Unabomber
Also wanting to eat your cake and have it too is supposed to imply you’re like a toddler having a tantrum because you’re just coming to terms with the rules of object permanence: a person playing peekaboo or hide-and-seek can disappear and still come back, but if you eat your cake it will be ALL GONE!!!
Mouselemming thank goodness you’re still here. I scrolled up and you disappeared for a second, I was so worried!
There’s a reason that is seen as greedy and foolish.
Ted, is that you?
Even flipped, it’s still weird in English with “Having cake” meaning “Eating cake” in most contexts anyway.
Better stated as “… and still have it”, come to think of it.
this actually finally makes the phrase mean what it means without a bunch of explanation
You cannot have a cake in your possession and also eat that cake. Once you eat it, it is gone.
I cannot possess cake without eating it
I cannot possess cake because I’m not a demon. Yet.
Technically its not gone, just inside you.
Oof ouch my bone satchel
Ted Kaczynski has entered the chat.
I was confused by this one too, but then I thought about it in the context of a wedding cake; you want to have it as a beautiful thing to show off to all of your guests, but you also want everyone to enjoy how good it tastes as a desert. You can’t have both simultaneously, so you have to pick
When I was a kid, I remember asking my mom about this phrase because it made no sense to me. Why in the world would one even want a cake if they weren’t going to eat it? What is the point?! (I have always been particularly fond of cake — eating it, that is — who cares if it’s pretty if it tastes good?)
According to legend, some people have what’s called “deferred gratification”, by which they drive pleasure out of knowing that they will get to eat the cake later.
I don’t get it either. I think it’s a myth.
But maybe you will someday in the future…
But I want it now!
Just desserts is another one.
“Burning the midnight oil”
Your using your battery without a wall charger, huh?
Good one! I would offer ‘Draining the house battery’ as a replacement but it doesn’t really have a ring to. Maybe ‘You’ve been living in low blue light mode’. No that’s even worse! somebody help me here 😅.
using solar at night
“yer using solar at night, ain’t ya boi”
that’s more of a ‘you’re a dumbass’ than a ‘you’re a hard worker’ tho, innit?
“Staying up past your bedtime” is about as close as I can think of, off the top of my head.
Entering single digits? Only makes sense for those with 24h time I guess
Never getting your phone on the charger?
24/7 bandwidth draw?
Ignite the midnight petroleum.
“Following the normal work routine”
All the horse ones because we don’t use horses anymore. There a ton of them.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Who tf gets a gift horse?
Saddle up. Who tf has a saddle?
Hold your horses. Who tf has horses to hold?
Get off your high horse. Who tf has a high horse?
Beat a dead horse. WTF.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Don’t check the dipstick of a gifted car.
They have the same meaning that you’re trying see if the horse is healthy and the car’s engine is in good condition.
Great examples! ‘champing at the bit’ also comes to mind. I think cars fill in pretty nicely as a horse substitute. ‘Saddle up’ has ‘buckle up’. Hold your horses has ‘Hit your brakes’. As for gift horses… ‘Don’t look a gift car under the hood?’ Hmm doesn’t quite work
“Don’t check the resale value of a gift car” maybe
But presumably a gift horse is worth something as long as it walks. This summer my kid got a “gift car” and it was critical look at both the undercarriage and the resale value. Thank goodness he was only out the cost of a tow and mechanics inspection
To update replace all with car.
Dont look under the hood of a gift car.
Buckle up.
Hold your engine.
Get out of your limousine.
Turn the key on a drowned engine.
You could still use Hold your horses because the car has horse power. Pressing the brake pedal literally holds your horses.
But that in itself is an outdated idiom. A car has engine power.
Quit horsing around. You’re really putting the cart before the horse.
Edit: sorry, gotta go. I need to see a man about a horse.
I’m sure there’s something there with e-scooters. Get off your segway max extreme and get down here. Don’t look at the speed regulator of a free scooter. Hold onto your brakes? Idk I’m just spitballing here
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Who tf gets a gift horse?
A buddy in college accidentally said “gifted horse“. Then his girlfriend said “very much so” and we never let him hear the end of it
I dunno. Yamiks still beats on horses… In both ways.
Don’t put the cart before the horse.
Don’t submit your post before you write it.This comment is about to be legen-
pation
RIP Timmy
Wait for it …
“Keep the carriage in the wake of the mare.”
Don’t buy crypto before it’s settled lol
“pot calling the kettle steel” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I mean black is still a common color for cookware though
I love head over heels as, in love.
It’s vice versa that makes actual sense, but that was considered too obviously risqué in the age the phrase was coined.
My head over her heels ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Dollars to donuts originated in an age when a dollar could buy a considerable quantity of donuts. Inflation has since reduced the literal interpretation of the expression to nearly even odds.
I’d bet you dollars to RAM…
Also, I enjoy etymology. To me donuts will always be doughnaughts. (Naught meaning nothing or zero. Essentially zeroes made of dough.)
I came here for this comment. Thanks OP.
Also donut shops overcharge. Donuts used to be super fucking cheap. That’s why they’d be next to the coffee pot at every function, and in the work break room. Now they want like $2 a donut. It’s dough that’s been boiled in grease. And they get to reuse the grease for many boilings. C’mon.
In 2026 it’s literally Donuts To Dollars.
Time is a flat, fried, circle drenched in chocolate frosting and filled with cream!
Chocolate-flavored frosting
FYI this can still happen on liquid propane stoves, so not totally lost to time.
Maybe “Kill two birds with one stone”, because who hunts with stones anymore?
As a software dev I’ll offer ‘Kill two bugs with one patch’ as a replacement.
and put 4 new ones in :)
99 different bugs in the code, 99 different bugs. You take one out, patch it away, 463 different bugs in the code 🎶
bugs
Touché!
I think I remember seeing a PETA post years ago that suggested “feed two birds with one scone”
Yeah that one bugs me. I can feed multiple birds with one scone easily. I’m putting in too much effort here, but this recipe has the macronutrient mass of a single scone at 90g. The average crow weighs about 300-600g. I chose it because it’s a common bird that would be interested in scone and that people like to feed, that’s on the bigger end of birds people feed (outside waterfowl). One crow isn’t eating nearly a third of its mass in one go, a sixth maybe. Songbirds aren’t even getting close to that.
Killing two birds with one stone implies some skill or fortune. You wouldn’t say it to describe picking up tomorrow’s groceries with today’s. Feeding two birds with one scone is only difficult or fortunate if those birds are geese, and even then I assume the only reason two managed to get their bills on that thing is because they’re fighting over it.
Also scones are terrible for the health of birds as are all breads. It’s frankly on point that peta would be dumb enough to make their animal friendly term equally as harmful to animals.
My fav replacement for this one is “feed two birds with one scone”, I don’t remember where I heard it but it always makes me smile
(Don’t feed bread to birds tho lol)
I prefer stone two birds with the same joint.
I prefer “Get two birds stoned at once”
“it’s a twofer!”
kinda
