MetaChat - [Thing you like to do] butters no parsnips.

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24 March 2009

[Thing you like to do] butters no parsnips. I'm looking for mean-spirited, snippy proverbs and sayings.→[More:]
Mutton dressed as lamb, no use crying over spilt milk, best cut your coat to your cloth, you're no spring chicken. These are all things a stingy-hearted person might secretly enjoy saying to or about someone else, to decrease their exuberance and joy.

Can anyone suggest any more of them?

(Don't worry, I have no intention of saying these things to anyone. I'm not a monster. I'm just collecting them for a project.)

post by: tangerine at: 14:01 | 32 comments

All hat, no cattle.

posted by mudpuppie 24 March | 14:03

When someone is whining about something:

"If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis."

posted by BoringPostcards 24 March | 14:06

"You've made your bed, now lie in it."

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:18

"[X] will end in tears."

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:19

To be said when commenting on the likelihood of someone's happiness, of course.

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:21

"Fur coat and no knickers"

posted by essexjan 24 March | 14:21

About a spinster: She'll be returned unopened.

About a bachelor: He'll die wondering.

posted by essexjan 24 March | 14:22

A sandwich short of a picnic.
All mouth no trousers.
BOBFOC
Aa much use as a chocolate fireguard.

posted by seanyboy 24 March | 14:23

"You get the face you deserve." (On observing signs of age...)

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:25

Mama don't like no fritos in a bowl.

posted by dersins 24 March | 14:26

Ooh, thank you. I knew I could count on you all. These are great.

posted by tangerine 24 March | 14:27

Somewhere a village is being deprived of its idiot.

posted by essexjan 24 March | 14:31

When I was an insufferable thirteen-year-old and wanted to put down my younger siblings for their juvenile interests, I would sniff "Small things amuse small minds."

posted by marsha56 24 March | 14:34

"Born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." -- US political putdown

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:34

The wheel's spinning but the hamster's dead.

She's an airplane blonde. (i.e. has a black box)

I didn't know the Council did haircuts.

posted by essexjan 24 March | 14:34

Oh yes, there was a two parter thing--

"Great minds think alike" to which the response was "and small minds seldom differ."

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:35

Oh, Jan, also see suicide blonde (dyed by her own hand).

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:36

seanyboy-- I've heard* the chocolate fireguard one also phrased as "as much use as a chocolate teapot".

* On Coronation Street

posted by jokeefe 24 March | 14:37

Dumb as a box of hammers.

If brains was gas, you wouldn't have enough to run a pissant's motorscooter around the inside of a Cheerio.

posted by Specklet 24 March | 14:53

"Do you want a medal, or a chest to pin it on?"

posted by scody 24 March | 15:05

I thought this was a thread about spam email subject lines.

posted by chewatadistance 24 March | 15:11

to demean another's accomplishment: "Shall we issue a commemorative coin?"

to demean another's perspicacity: "Wouldn't know X if it crawled up his ass and set up camp."

posted by Joe Beese 24 March | 15:23

I completely missed the [things you like to do] part of the title so I was trying to think of how 'butters no parnsips' could be an insult. I keep thinking of it in that sort of old Southern belle type thing: "Well, butter my parsnips!"

posted by sperose 24 March | 15:48

Only boring people are bored.

He/She/It is as useful as tits on a boar hog.

He/She talks like a goose with a clatter bone up its ass.

A few _____ short of a _____. (There's a lot of those)

posted by deborah 24 March | 15:52

You're thicker than the complete works of Charles Dickens in extra large print*

*My little sister used this one once, when someone teased her in High School. His response - "Who's Charles Dickens?". The teacher was trying not to laugh - and told her that she'd made a fine point, but that she probably shouldn't say things like that. Even if it was very apt.

posted by jonathanstrange 24 March | 16:03

To bring someone down who is crowing over an achievement: "I'll alert the press."

posted by redvixen 24 March | 16:10

"If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit here next to me"
I think that one is attributed to Dorothy Parker. She was the master of the subtle put-down.

posted by Kangaroo 24 March | 17:07

"If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit here next to me"

...or Alice Roosevelt.

posted by marsha56 24 March | 17:56

This is the sound of the world's tiniest violin playing your pity song.

I still don't get the butters/parsnips reference

posted by rhapsodie 24 March | 20:14

I think the original for the parsnips saying is 'fine words butter no parsnips' (that's the only one I've heard over here, anyway).

posted by altolinguistic 25 March | 04:54

Dumb as a sack of hair

Useless as JPEGs to Hellen Keller

Too bad, so sad.

"That's a TFB" is something I say a lot.

This means what to me?

Chocolate Bunny - that might require some 'splainin'. I deal with people, who from time to time, insist that they must have some bit of equipment or software or something that's waay out of our Computer/Technology standard. We're not rigid about it, but there are people wanting a full blown CS3 installation when they just need to edit PDF files, and they don't even do that well.

Then there's the people who actually do need that kind of thing and can demonstrate why - Prima Donnas. No problem. They're used to arguing for what they want, and can sometimes even compromise.

Chocolate bunnies will argue, but if you put the least bit pressure or heat on them for justification, they melt or crumple like, well, chocolate bunnies.

Then there's the nasty ones:

beat with the ugly stick

stood in the dumb line twice over

Looks like he forgot his shoehorn today (head up the ass)

Couldn't empty a boot with instructions the heel

Can't diagnose/find his way out of a paper sack

You stare at the sun a lot, don't you?

posted by lysdexic 25 March | 12:36

Thanks again, everyone. (And rhapsodie, to say that something "butters no parsnips" means that it's of no practical value.)

posted by tangerine 25 March | 18:21

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