Popular Sayings that Don't Make Sense

Over the years people have come up with popular phrases or sayings as an analogy for certain situations. Many of these make a lot of sense and perfectly describe the situation but there are a few that just don't make sense.

Like comparing apples to oranges
Whenever someone is comparing two things that aren't alike someone will always chime in by saying "that's like comparing apples with oranges", as if to say you can't compare those things because they aren't anything alike.

Isn't that the point? Isn't comparing all about figuring out in what ways two different things are alike? Comparing apples to oranges makes plenty off sense. How are they alike? What do they look like? What do they taste like? Apparently whoever came up with this saying thinks we should only compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. How does that make any sense? Why compare two things that are exactly alike? That would be like saying, "well those identical twins sure have the same hair and eye color."

The whole nine yards
Often people refer to the "whole nine yards" as going all the way. Now maybe I'm just too young to get the reference but the only thing that I know of that is judged by yards is football. In football going the "whole nine yards" would not mean a whole lot since you have to go ten yards to get a first down. Instead of going all the way, going the "whole nine yards" would mean not going all the way.

Have your cake and eat to
This one I hear the most and it really bugs me. When someone says you want to have your cake and eat to they mean that you want it your way and you want to enjoy it. Well, yeah! Why wouldn't I? Why in the world would I buy a cake and then just let it sit there and collect dust? Dang right I'm gong to eat my cake! I paid good money for that cake and it's mine! I understand sometimes you might buy a cake and give it to somebody else. There is nothing wrong with that but there is also nothing wrong with eating the cake yourself.