Real-world idioms: "He would be turning over in his grave if..." I heard this the other day. It is a familiar idiom in the United States. The exact wording varies. It can be "he would be turning over

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Dan Smith

Real-world idioms: "He would be turning over in his grave if..."

I heard this the other day. It is a familiar idiom in the United States. The exact wording varies. It can be "he would be turning over in his grave," "rolling in his grave," or "spinning in his grave."

It means that someone who is dead would not have approved of something that's happening. Literally, the phrase suggests that the person is not "resting in peace." He is tossing and turning in his grave, like a restless sleeper.

It is often used in a joking way. It often means that standards have changed, and that the speaker accepts something that the dead person would never have accepted.

Examples:

"Your grandfather would be turning over in his grave if he knew that you decided to attend Cal Tech instead of Princeton."

"Your grandmother would be rolling in her grave if she knew you were getting a tattoo."

It can, however, be used very seriously. For example, it can mean that someone has betrayed the ideals of a former leader. "[That leader] would be turning over in his grave if he knew what [his party] is doing now."

16 nov. 2019 22:51

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Hamlet's soliloquy is almost too famous. I won't go so far as to say that it has become a joke, but it is the most famous passage in all of Shakespeare, and it certainly serves as a subject of jokes.

Electrical engineers used to hang up a diagram on a bulletin board called the "Hamlet circuit:"

<a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DduMigqU8AM5Hyu?format=jpg&name=small" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hamlet circuit</a>

The symbols were used to represent logic gates. Signals were identified on diagrams by designations like 3C or 2B. The triangle with the circle at its tip is an inverter, expression the logical relation "not." The symbol at the right is a "or" gate, which raises the output if one or the other or both inputs are raised. So the whole circuit expresses the Boolean relationship, "2B or not 2B." Part of the joke is that it is a useless circuit that does nothing, because since either 2B is true, or not 2B is true, 2B or not 2B is always true and the output simply remains high regardless of the input.

18 november 2019

To kick the bucket = to die it originates from the time when coffins had a bell on top with a rope going into the coffin and the wrongly diagnosed dead person who woke up in a/the/their coffin could pull the rope to draw attention the they were alive.

Apparently it was common for doctors to make mistakes sometimes if a person were in a coma or similar situation only.

Not sure how this connection came about, it should be to pull the rope or ring the bell.

Another theory is that it stems from the last death throes of a person having last second muscular contractions causing a kicking out of the leg.

Also there are these theories and speculations.

When a person wishes to commit suicide they stand on a metal bucket or pale and the kick it way from themselves.

Pigs used to be slaughtered by being hung from a bucket = archaic term for a beam

And this I think is the most plausible theory, in the catholic religion when a person dies a 'bucket of holy water' is placed at their feet, for mourners and visitors to sprinkle holy water onto the body.

17 november 2019