Things I Got Totally (and Hilariously)Wrong

Because Hey, I’m Weird Sometimes

As a kid, I remember hearing and repeating different sayings, song lyrics, etc. and having no idea until years, even decades later, that I had gotten them completely wrong. Not only completely wrong but embarrassingly, stupidly, as in made no sense at all wrong.

I’m not sure exactly how this popped into my head, but it has me giggling so, I figured I’d share the chuckles. Some of these might make you laugh too:

Rising Up to the Challenge of Arrival: As a pre-teen, I’d rock out to Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger. It was 1982. Rocky was huge! I loved the movie. My father was a former boxer. And truth be told, I enjoyed throwing a few punches myself.

And I loved the energy of the song. I’d screech out the lyrics along with my blaring cassette tape. Only, I had the words wrong. At one point in the song, it goes, “it’s the eye of the tiger/it’s the thrill of the fight/rising up to the challenge of our rival.”

That makes sense. Of course, it’s about fighting and if one is to fight, presumably there’s a rival to go up against. But what I heard was rising up to the challenge of arrival. Yeah, because, that makes total sense right? Looking back, if I were to apply some sort of defence to my indefensible misinterpretation, I could say showing up is often the hardest part of a fight. Yeah, lame. I know.

Anyway, my brother had to set me straight. He’s 15 years older than me and I guess he grew tired of hearing me holler out the wrong lyrics. He called me an idiot. Well, he wasn’t totally wrong.

A Washed Pot Never Boils: Of course, the saying is a watched pot never boils. And it means things happen very slowly if you’re just sitting around waiting for them to happen. It’s something my mother used to say all the time, usually to me. Let’s just say I’ve always struggled with patience.

But somehow, I heard, a washed pot never boils. Because, of course, everyone knows that only dirty pots are capable of boiling. It’s a good thing I realized it was only a saying, I could have poisoned someone, or myself with all that cooking in dirty pots!

Poor as Joe’s Turkey: This is another saying my mother used a lot. Well, she actually said, poor as Job’s turkey. It’s a way of saying someone is really poor and is based on a character in the Bible named Job. Full disclosure, I actually had to look Job up today to understand the reference. As the story goes, God took all of Job’s wealth from him as a test of faith.

So, Job was poor, and the only thing poorer, I guess was his turkey. God must have forgotten to take that darn turkey.

But what I heard was poor as Joe’s turkey. I didn’t know who this Joe guy was, but I knew his turkey was in pretty bad shape. I sure didn’t want to be that turkey.

Six in One Half — A Dozen in the Other: This was another popular idiom in my house. When said and understood properly, as in six of one, half a dozen of the other, it means it’s all pretty much the same. If there are 2 choices, they’re both as good as the other. If there’s an argument, both sides are essentially equal.

But what I heard was six in one half, a dozen in the other. THAT’S completely different. That’s not equal. That told me that one side, one option, was clearly better. In fact, it was twice as good because there was a dozen in that half. All I wanted to know was which one. So never mind quoting stupid sayings at me, just tell me which side has the dozen and I’ll go with that if it’s all the same to you.

Workin’ on a Hurt-Smith: Okay, this wasn’t something I heard wrong as a child. Apparently, my very special brand of ineptitude continued well into adulthood. And this time, I exposed my ignorance to my own son.

My oldest son is a former pharmaceutical chemist. He’s now a music producer. He’s also a rapper and when he was younger he and his friends made rap videos. They were pretty good for high school/university-aged kids.

My favourite of these videos is called My Soul and it’s based loosely on the TV show Breaking Bad. For reference, my son is the (very handsome) baldish sciencey-looking guy who’s pretending to make drugs.

Anyway, there’s a line in the song that says “workin’ till the Earth splits.” I guess they were working really hard making all those drugs. What I heard was workin’ on a hurt-smith. I had no idea what a hurt-smith was. I assumed it was some new, youthful slang for having a rough time. You know, sort of like being a hurtin’ unit.

So, I’m talking to my son one day and I decide I’m gonna be cool. I’m not sure who or what we were talking about now, but I recall telling him whoever it was workin’ on a hurt-smith. He was naturally confused.

So, I dug the hole deeper and referenced his song. I was confused by his confusion. I mean surely the boy recognized his own lyrics.

He laughed at me and told me the correct words. I felt like an ass and so very not cool. In my defence, my husband heard the same thing as I did.

We both still use the phrase workin’ on a hurt-smith to describe having a really rough time. It’s mine, I invented it. I like it. You never know, it might just catch on. If it does, remember, you heard it here first.

I’m sure there were other things I got wrong, but I’ll leave it there for now. I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one day. But I would be curious to know what sayings, song lyrics, etc. you got wrong. So how about it? Drop me a line in the comments and share some of them with me. Or better yet, write a story about them. I’m looking at you Jimmy Misner Jr., KL Simmons, Lisa Gerard Braun, Carl Parker, Jan Sebastian and anyone else that wants to participate.