Killing Songbirds and Other Disgusting Stuff

I'm pretty sure you know at least one terrible person. You probably know several terrible people. You may even be one yourself. I know you know a terrible person because you've heard the expression "kill two birds with one stone." They mean, of course, getting two things accomplished by performing one action. The implication is that by doing one thing two things that need to be done will be accomplished. The literal meaning of course can be easily imagined as a particularly mean-spirited young boy throwing rocks at birds on a telephone line and trying to kill more than one bird with a single rock.

People who gripe about paying an arm and a leg for something clearly haven't considered their words very much, either. If you literally lost an arm and a leg but serendipity gave you something great in return like a nice new handicap-friendly house it would be accurate to say you paid an arm and a leg for a house. But when your teenager promptly loses the cellular phone you bought them it's downright offensive to lament that they lost a piece of hardware that you payed an arm and a leg for.

"I need that like I need a hole in my head." An expression meaning something you definitely do not need (as except in rare cases your average person does not need an additional hole in their head other than the natural ones). This can be easily misconstrued however. People could assume that since you do need some holes in your head that whatever you're referring to is something that you actually need or that, for some reason you want to create a new hole in order to kill yourself (such as with a bullet).

Giving someone "a taste of their own medicine". Taken literally this is not even slightly vengeful. It's actually almost caring. Because if you give someone their medication and their medication is, say, an epipen when they're in anaphylactic shock then you've saved their life. There's really no way to construe it as poisoning or paying someone back unless you assume that the person you want to go against was handing out a poison they made up in the guise of medicine which is rarely the case.

Inviting someone to "break a leg" when they are about to perform in public is cheerily wishing painful bodily harm in front of a crowd at the expense of a friend (as you never say "break a leg" to people you don't know). The meaning, grotesquely, is actually "good luck."

Asking someone to lend you their ear so they'll pay attention and hear what you say when not only would it make it much harder for them to hear anything you say they would also be seriously distracted by the pain of having their ear cut off and all the subsequent bleeding and mess. They may even become unconscious and not be able to hear you at all.

I cannot imagine a circumstance in which you would need to "chew someone out" unless they were trapped in a large piece of food and you had the use of nothing but your mouth to free them. Even then there are probably certain people who would be better punished by not being chewed out. After all, shouldn't annoying jerks be left trapped in a big chocolate bar and not given a harsh talking to?

I'm not sure why people talk about the Hunchback of Nontre Dam when they mean two things are identical. A dead ringer of bells just doesn't equal two identical things.

When someone complains that someone else is just "beating a dead horse" when they raise concerns about something they mean not to bother with talking about something that's already been decided on. I have to say that it doesn't seem like anyone would voluntarily want to physically beat a dead horse as that would be unsanitary and also the horse lovers of the world would rip you apart.

Graveyard Shift refers not to actually having to work in a graveyard or mortuary but for some reason working between midnight and eight am. Why between those hours? Graveyards exist all day long. They don't exist any more prominently at night. I can only assume that for some reason they mean this time of day because those are the hours during which you would probably least want to be in a graveyard and would rather be at your job if given the choice?

I find that spitting is a very inaccurate and messy art form so I can only imagine that a "spitting image" means something of very poor quality.

"Wearing your heart on your sleeve" seems like a very poor way of communicating feelings unless your sentiment is "I am dead because my heart has literally been ripped out of my chest" in which case the observation is very clear though most likely the only people who get to see it will be whoever discovers the body and the police.

Intestinal discomfort as a means of judging other people seems like a justification for random decisions. Any statement saying that someone says they made with their "gut feeling" I take to mean: "I don't know why I made this guess and I may be an idiot."

Someone "loosing their head" can only happen in a cartoon. It's mildly humorous to see a cartoon character walking around with their head under their arm but unless you were around King Henry VIII it's unlikely you've seen someone who "lost their head." It doesn't make sense that people who "lost their heads" to be enraged because dead people don't have much of any feelings at all. At least not after a few minutes anyway.

Acting like a chicken that has been detached from the container that holds its nervous system. I am undecided about this one. On the one hand there was a chicken that survived having its head chopped off until it eventually choked on its own phlegm and died. So they could mean that someone has lived blindly until they choked on their own phlegm and died or they could mean that they are simply acting dead as a chicken with it's head cut off usually tends to do.

So if you don't know any disgusting people you're very lucky and I'd like to ask you to pity me as I struggle not to gag at the thought of pain and spurting blood when someone asks me to lend them my ear. I want beg and tell them I'll be sure to listen if they just let me keep my ears.