George Carlin — "Everyday Expressions"

Classic George Carlin from the early 1990's on the way we overuse expressions

Legally drunk, selling like hotcakes, that's the last straw, down the pike, down the tubes, to take the cake, easy as pie, piece of cake, fine and dandy, more than happy, in your own words, etc.

Enjoy! :)

Some transcript found on web follows:

These are just some sayings that we use everyday, and never really take the time to analyze them...

...

"You know where you can stick it!" — Perople say this one when their angry..."Oh yea — well you know where you can stick it!" Well what if you DON'T know — what if you're a NEW guy? I think there should be a government booklet entitled "WHERE TO STICK IT." Now that I think of it, there IS a government booklet like that...they send it to you on April 15th!

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"Lock 'em up and throw away the key!" — People say this about prisoners all the time when they get caught. Well...wHERE YOU GONNA THROW THE KEY!!! Out in front of the jail? HIS FRIENDS'LL FIND IT!!! How far can you throw a key, really? Even if you scale it on its side, an extra 5 or 10 feet tops! This needs to be completely re-thought!

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"Out walkin' the streets..." — Another one used with criminals. People say, "Sure they let this sonofogun go...now he's out WALKIN' THE STREETS!!!" How do we know? Maybe he's at home bangin' the babysitter! People who are released from jail aren't always out walkin' the streets — sometimes they steal a car! And then we can happily say, "Whew, thank G-d he stole a car...least he's not out walkin' the streets!"

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"The Riot Act" — People always say they're gonna read that to you. I've never heard this thing at all! Parents especially use this one as a threat — "When your father comes home he's gonna read you THE RIOT ACT!" "Oh yeah? Tell him I already read it myself! And I didn't like it - I consider it wordy and poorly thought out! He wants to read me something? How 'bout the Gentlemen's Guide to the Golden Age of Oral Sex!!!"

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"Takes the cake" — you hear that one alot to - "Boy that Fred...he really takes the cake!" Where? Where do you take a cake? You know where I would take it...down to the bakery, to see the other cakes! And why does he always take the CAKE....why not the pie? Pie is easy to carry — "easy as pie!" Wait a mintue...cake is also relatively easy to carry — "Piece O' cake!"

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"Down the tubes!" People always say this one — "Boy this country is goin' down the tubes!" What tubes? You ever seen any tubes? And why is there always MORE THAN ONE TUBE? And where do they go? Seems to me — ONE country — ONE tube! And a tube that big....somebnody woulda seen it by now! They'd say, "Hey Joey! Look at dis freakin' tube!" Nobody ever says that — ya' know why? NO TUBES! We don't have tube one! We are essentially TUBELESS!

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"The greatest thing since sliced bread!" — So this is it huh folks? THE FREAKIN' PYRAMIDS!!!! The GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!! Even a LAVA LAMP!!!! What's so special about sliced bread — you gotta loaf, you gotta knife, SLICE THE FREAKIN' THING!!!!!!

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"Walkin' papers" — they say this when someone gets fired. "Look at Davy — yeah, they give him his walkin' papers today!" I've been fired a lot of times — never got any of these so-called "walkin' papers!" Never even got a pink slip...you know what I would get? A guy would come over to my desk and say "GET THE HECK OUTTA HERE!!!!"

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"Fine and Dandy" — This is an old fashioned one. Someone would say, "How are ya' Bill?" and Bill would say "Fine and dandy!" you know why I don't say this? Because I've never actually been both of those things at the same time! There are times when I'm fine...not quite dandy! Close to dandy...approaching dandy....in the vicinity of dandyhood! Other times, I AM highly dandy! But not quite fine. One time actually — one time — 1969, August, for about an hour — I was BOTH fine and dandy at the same time...BUT NOBODY ASKED ME HOW I WAS!!!!! And I could'a told 'em! I consider it a lost opportunity!

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"It's the Quiet ones ya' gotta watch!" People say this about violent criminals — a guy gets arrested and they bring out his/her neighbor for an interview and they tell the newscaster that he/she was always very quiet...and someone in the crowd says, "Well....it's the QUIET ones ya' gotta watch!" This sounds like a very dangerous assumption to me! I'll bety you anthing, that while you're watching a quiet one....a noisy one will FREAKIN' KILL YOU!!!! Let's say you're in a bar and som guy is in a booth reading a book, quietly, and not bothering anyone...and another guy is bangin' a machette on the bar screaming, "I'll kill the next twirp that comes in here!!!!" WHO YA' GONNA WATCH????

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"More than happy" — You hear this alot — "Oh, I'd be more than happy to do that for ya'!" How can you be "more than happy?" This sounds like a dangerous medical condition! — we had to put Dave away in the home today....he was...well....MORE THAN HAPPY!

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"In your own words" — You hear this a lot in a classroom, or a courtroom — "Tell us, in your OWN words..." Do you have your OWN WORDS? Sheesh, I've been usin' the same ones everybody else has been using! Next time someone tells you to use your own words, shout "Nikk Beebo Flarney Quando Floooooo!"