Do you wonder where weird verbal habits you get come from? For example, when you say something rude or ridiculous or self-deprecating & you say, as your friends or whoever's around is laughing (you hope), "Did I say that out loud?" I do that occasionally, & it gets chuckles, & of course I've seen it on television & in movies, but I can't remember the first time I ever heard it. Maybe it didn't have much effect on me when I first heard it, but repetition made it more desirable to add to my idiom vocabulary.
One thing I say - like, way too much - is a play on the phrase "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." I like to say, "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it," which was, I thought, my clever way of mixing up the two phrases, the one above & the phrase "Don't burn your bridges behind you." Man I thought I was cool.
About two years ago, I was watching Nick At Nite or something & they were playing old episodes of "Three's Company." I watched that show straight through my childhood, even watching the "sequel" "Three's A Crowd," such was my devotion. So imagine my surprise when one of the characters - probably Chrissy - used the phrase, as an obvious mistake, worthy of a double take, "I can burn that bridge when I get to it."
How could I not have gotten that phrase from that particular episode?
It's time like this when I wonder what kind of personality I would have if it hadn't been for television. Discuss among yourselves.
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