Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with expressions

By Thor's Hammer!

blahtsk — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:12:23 -0800

By the beard of Zeus! I'm looking for fantastic exclamations! What are some actual, early-American exclamations of surprise? Looking more for expressions with unexpected references, such as, "Merlin's beard!" and less of "Gadzooks!," "Well paint me red and call me Shirley!", which are less ... mysterious, and more just goofy. Hope that makes sense.

On MeFi, all portents of doom are typed...

l33tpolicywonk — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:41:39 -0800

Is it "writing on the wall" or "handwriting on the wall"? When / how did it change in popular usage? Since my childhood I've been used to hearing the idiom "writing on the wall" to describe a portent of doom. It seems like just in the last few years I've heard the variation "handwriting on the wall" and stopped hearing "writing on the wall" entirely. I've deduced from searching online that they're interchangeable and the idiom comes from the Bible, so it is subject to different translations, obviously. Has anyone else noticed this shift? Is there a definite reason why "hand" would be appended to the expression in the last few years?

Stupid Performance Face :\

divabat — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:16:03 -0800

Performers, presenters, actors, dancers, models, all related: How do you get over awkward facial expressions and not look stupid? I've been performing on and off but really only got into it this year. I've learnt a lot and have had many opportunities, but there's still something I need to work on: facial expressions.

I'm ok with being neutral, being defiant/angry, and with silly happy acting-type gestures; however, I'm doing a piece that starts off as being this cheesy Bettie Page "omg damsel in distress" thing and I can't seem to pull it off. I tend to focus more on my outfit/apparatus than on the audience, and my face just looks really really weird.

I've asked around and the main thing I hear is "practice" - is there anything in the specific I should practice on? I find it strange looking at my face in the mirror while performing. How else have you gotten over "urgh I look stupid"?

Microexpression

nam3d — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:16:57 -0800

I've just discovered the world of microexpression. I'd like to learn more, what books, research papers, blogs (and anything else) should I be looking at?

How do you eloquently tell somebody that they are crazy?

captainsohler — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:25:21 -0800

What are some eloquent ways to proclaim that someone is crazy? This is for good tidings for some good friends getting married. Besides eloquence, I would also like to know other ways of saying that someone is without reason in their actions. Especially colloquial expressions.

But really, I am focused on the eloquence.

Thanks guys!!

"You're in our thoughts and prayers"

HopperFan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:05:27 -0800

When did "thoughts and prayers" become such a commonplace expression of sympathy? The phrase seems to be almost ubiquitous now, and I honestly don't remember reading it so frequently before (by that, I mean in the 70s - 80's -early 90s). Were there other common phrases that people used to express sympathy in the past - or is it a simple case of me just not noticing because I was younger?

It seems that I first started noticing it in association with auto racing, but I doubt that's the origin. I tried looking up older newspaper articles that might contain similar sentiments, but I just wasn't finding "thoughts and prayers."

I assume it's unique to the States, with a little bit of bleed-over to the UK, but I'm not sure of that, either.

How would an Indian say "Oh my gosh"?

Artw — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:48:55 -0800

What would a good Indian expression of suprise be? Specifically a pleasant suprise, such as the realisation that one is going to make a large amount of money, possibly from someone who is none too reputable. The Hindi (or other language) version and a literal translation would be most useful.

Most all people don't know proper English, amirite?

ClarissaWAM — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 13:32:02 -0800

"Most all" - it is wrong. Right? So I've seen "most all" (instead of "almost all") around for a while now, generally in everydaylanguage and online. I've always assumed it is incorrect English - and I still think it is.

But I have seen it creep up a few times in contexts where you would not expect incorrect English (the printed press for instance) so I am now wondering - has it become accepted incorrect English? Or am I in fact very mistaken and it is correct? (but it does not make sense!! it's either all or most - it can't be both!)

Colloquialism

jasondigitized — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 07:42:54 -0800

What is your favorite and most colorful expression or phrase? Speaking about two idiots that we work with, my coworker said that they looked like 'Two monkey's f*cking a football', which led me to say 'They couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery', and as a final touch, which made me laugh, my coworker states 'They're about as handy as a bear cub with a toothpick'. I would love to write a book or create a website with colorful phrases from around the world. What are some of your favorite idioms that you use or have overhead in the boardroom, bar, or barnyard?

Regex: Text from HTML, no attributes

ph00dz — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 19:15:47 -0800

Regex Madness...filter. How do I pull the text out of an html document without looking at the tag attributes? I'm using javascript... and I am just stuck. I think my brain is about to explode.

I'm trying to pull certain things out of an html document. Let's say, for simplicity's sake, it looks like this... 'cept with html tags. (Had to change 'em to display here.)



[!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"]

[html]

  [head]

  [meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1250"]

  [meta name="generator" content="PSPad editor, www.pspad.com"]

  [title]Sample Document[/title]

  [/head]

  [body]

    [p]

      [img src="http://blah.com/sample.jpg"]

    [/p]

    [p]

      Some text is [a href="fjkj.html"]here[/a]

    [/p]

  [/body]

[/html]

All I want out of that thing is:
Sample Document
Some text is
here

Is that possible? I thought I had something working... but I was so wrong.

I tried to spider down through the dom, but I never could get that right either.

As a bonus... is there a particular book/tutorial folks recommend for understandings the mighty regex?

Combative non-sequitur retorts?

evariste — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:49:57 -0800

IdiomaticFilter...: One of the funniest skits on Chappelle Show is the OJ Simpson jury selection, where Dave says to the prosecutor that "Some people say that cucumbers taste better pickled". I found it hilarious, and I want to know more quaint, idiomatic retorts in that spirit.

Holy Shit, Batman!

landtuna — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:25:43 -0800

Where do apeshit and batshit come from? I understand the biological processes okay, but I can't figure out where the expressions "go apeshit" and "batshit insane" come from. The first seems like it might have something to do with flinging poo, but the second makes no sense at all.

Does exposure to guano cause insanity? Is it just a really crazy situation when a bat shits on you?

Dictionary.com is no help, and I don't have access to the O.E.D. Wiktionary mentions the phrases, but it doesn't try to figure out their origins.

AE expressions tutorials?

brundlefly — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 23:32:39 -0800

Anyone know of any good tutorials on expressions in Adobe After Effects?

Is kabuki really empty?

profwhat — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:16:32 -0800

It seems that when we Westerners call an event a "kabuki dance," we mean that the event is elaborate but ultimately without substance. Examples: 1, 2. When did this usage arise, and is this unfair to the kabuki art form?

Source of the expression "give it the old college try"?

cmyr — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:38:54 -0800

Language/idioms/etc: I'm wondering about the source of the expression "give it the old college try". Google offers tons of examples, but nothing concrete.

Is there a regular expressions standard?

normy — Wed, 21 Apr 2004 17:09:36 -0800

Regular Expressions: Is there a standard? [more] Many programming languages and technologies support pattern matching in text using regular expressions. Is there a published industry standard somewhere for their syntax and implementation?