#it's cold and unfeeling i might as well be writing a news report

[lyssentome]

I'm coming to terms with the fact that the only thing I have going for my writing are: a) dialogue and b) emotional scenes with way too many flowery phrases. Idk how to do anything else. I have no spatial ability. Why the Fuck am I even a writer if I can't visualize shit.

[yes-i-would-like-to-be-stabbed]

Michael X Loomis’ Daughter

Hey guys what’s up?????

Thank to @xqromanova for this ask!

what if reader is Loomis daughter? like, she's studying the psychiatry career and she's helping her dad, how her and Michael meet? And how they establish their relationship?and, of course, Loomis reaction about that. Thanks! nsfw or sfw, or both! whatever u want :)

(Honestly at first i thought you meant Billy Loomis lmao)

(Also when i write for Michael i usually incorporate all the Michaels into one being) 

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You had just graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology, and had only had an internship at hospital when your father asked you to come work with him.

You were a bit hesitate to go work at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. You hadn’t heard too many good things about that place. And of course you knew that the legendary Michael Myers was there and was your father’s main ‘patient’

After some coercing from your dad, however, you finally caved and agreed to work with him.

At first it wasn’t so bad, you helped monitor and observe the patients, and your dad watched as you handled even some of the most difficult patients with calmness and patience.

Your dad decided that you were going to help him with Michael

At first you were terrified about working with him, you had heard all of the stories.

But you remembered that some things are out of people’s control when it comes to mental illness, and you decided to take a chance on him.

You were very displeased with the way he was treated by the staff, many of the nurses seemed to neglect him, and your dad wasn’t any help with his constant badgering of Michael.

No wonder why he had so much resentment to this place, everyone was horrible to him

You decided to take over his care, there wasn’t very many complaints when you did so. Some of the nurses were even relieved. Your father allowed it, he was curious as to what would happen.

Michael was just very distrustful of you in the beginning, thinking you were going to be like the other nurses.

You were very patient with him. You were very gentle and never raised your voice at him unless he was harming himself or another person.

Over time Michael began to trust you, letting you clean his cuts and wounds, letting you give him his pills by hand, and he even showed you any of the new masks he made.

You could see how some people might have called him cold and cruel. He was a fairly silent man and he was very intimidating. However, you could calm him down fairly easily when his anger got the best of him.

Your father was very pleased. Michael was much more calm and obedient in your presence. He used it to his advantage.

Your father began having you sit in with him as he questioned Michael.

At first you were okay with it, it was part of Michael’s treatment.

But over time you could see that your father was almost antagonizing him?

Constantly referring to him as an unfeeling and evil creature instead of a human being.

You got into arguments with your father about Michael, you had grow to care for the man. And your moral code was screaming at you that his treatment was anything but good.

Your father berated you for it. Michael was pure evil and barely had any humanity.

You argued that was people like your father that made him that way.

Needless to say the argument didn’t end well.

The tension at work was becoming more and more unbearable as you refused to sit in anymore sessions which would take your father back to square one with Michael, who was less than pleased to not have you by his side.

Your father decided since that you were no longer helpful, he got you fired saying that you did your job poorly.

You barely got to say goodbye to Michael as you were forced out of the building.

Weeks had gone by before you had seen or heard from your dad or Michael.

You could care less than your father didn’t speak to you, you finally saw how he really was. Cruel.

You had been working at the local hospital in Haddonfield when a breaking news report stated Michael Myers had escaped from Smith’s Grove.

Other reports stated that he stolen multiple employee files and warned people to lock up their homes and to stay indoors after 9 pm.

You were beyond happy

That night you kept your door unlocked ready to see Michael once again.

Hope you liked it!

[icantbraintoday-tryagainlater]

You are Expendable

You are a hard working individual Pride yourself on your work You show up early and stay late You never miss a meeting or an email “We are lucky to have you, You are such a great asset to the team. With everything you do, to show our gratitude We will fire you without question.” You work hard every day Put your heart and soul into the job You encourage your coworkers, teammates Take that overtime and bust your ass You don’t sleep, you think of what You can do better tomorrow Yet you are expendable. Your job does not need you You will be replaced by the end of the day. Your job does not value you, You are a commodity that can be replaced. Your skill is teachable, Your knowledge is common. The truth is you are expendable And they’ll replace you for their financial gain.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I should have known from the 1st day of training my job as a claim associate for a Big Name National Insurance Company that I would regret my decision to apply.

I should have known when within two days of training I was pulled to the side and written up. For my neighbor talking to me.

I should have known.

So this is all on me, I know, but I thought that this company would treat me right and it was only these two bitter old employees who were about to retire.

I was wrong. I was so wrong.

the first year was amazing! I met new friends, I was great at my job, I had the best manager in the world! I was surprised that I could like working in Insurance. I was being talked to about advancement, different areas of the company I would excel at, and the right path to follow to achieve my goals.

Then She came along. Covid hit, we were all sent home, and a brand new manager took over my team. I didn’t think much of it, because honestly? She seemed fine. She was new to managing, but not new to the job. My biggest critique then had just been how much time she seemed to take off. She was NEVER there. Every other day she was taking a partial day. She took long weekends, took weeks off at a time. It was weird to say the least. 

But then the snippy emails came. The bitchy remarks.

My team suffered GREATLY. We went from being one of the top performing teams to suddenly being at the bottom. And all of these Outliers Reports that we had never heard of started becoming this huge deal.

Literally never heard of these reports, and then one week we were all on them. And it was a BIG DEAL (TM). Then we were getting in trouble for being in the wrong call states (the call states we have been told to be in for specific situations since we were trained were suddenly the wrong call states).

All of this I was willing to just deal with. But then...

Then my mom got sick. I got a call from my father at around 1 or 2PM Thursday, November 19, 2020. My mom was going to the ER because they thought she was having a stroke. I told my boss I couldn’t be at work and left for the day. Found out that it was a tumor, possibly cancer. Within 2 weeks she was in surgery to remove the mass and we found out it was Glioblastoma. The worst brain cancer.

And my friends and family kept asking “Is your work understanding? Being accommodating?” And I couldn’t say they were. They were the complete opposite of understanding.

I fought for a while to make them understand and to just ask for simple accommodations only to be met with “If you can’t do your job then go home.”

Below is a letter I wrote to HR.

“To whom it may concern,

My name is ______, and I work as a claims representative in the Auto Property Claims, Express. I am writing to you today to bring up some issues I have recently run into with the way Express is run, and I would like to discuss these with you and hopefully find a solution so if someone else is ever in my position, they are treated better.

Specifically, I would like to discuss how I was treated when I found out my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer.

I received a call on my first break on Thursday, November 19th, from my father. He told me that my mother was on her way to the ER. I immediately IM’d my manager, *blacked out*, and requested to leave, as my father cannot take care of my mother alone since he is blind. She simply said that she logged me out, and I did not think anything of her short reply.

I came back to work on Monday, November 23rd, because I had no more PTO, despite still waiting for my mother’s MRIs to come back with the official diagnosis. She was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on her brain.  I could not afford to take time off (and also welcomed a distraction), but knew I would not be much help on phones, so I asked for tasks and waited 40 minutes for a response.  However, She simply stated that it wasn't possible for me to do other tasks - that either I could answer calls and talk to customers while in crisis and crying or miss work and not get paid.

I understand there are rules and managers cannot change our schedules on a whim; however, it felt crass that she would not even discuss an alternative. In the past I know that myself and others have been given courtesy during extreme circumstances, so I had spoken with another team manager about it, and he told me he would speak with Jessica for me.

Right before close, however, I received a very snippy IM from Her stating the following: “Just so you know, I had spoken with my boss, *blocked*, about this. And she said we couldn’t do that. And you were logged out for 40 minutes earlier today so I took the liberty of changing your T2 for that as an Unscheduled PTO.”

Those 40 minutes were while I was waiting for her response and trying to get myself together after learning horribly devastating news. I also felt very attacked and that if I were to do anything that she did not like from now on that she would retaliate against me. I still feel as though she will retaliate against me just because I went to another manager with an issue that she did not appear to care about at all. 

She has also consistently been lacking in manager experience, as well. The most prominent example of this is that she will not (or possibly does not know how to) help with personal development, either within the company nor in my current job position. When she brings up any areas where I could do better, she simply tells me “do better,” and when I ask for advice on how to go about doing so because I feel as though I am doing all I can she simply tells me again “do better." I can provide examples if you would like.

I attempted to speak about this with HR, but they simply asked why I was upset that my manager was asking me to do my job. I felt isolated afterwards, and felt as though Big National Insurance Company in general does not care about their employees in the least. Our motto is Remarkable. But my experience during this tragic time of learning that my mother might not just have brain cancer, but may never regain control or strength of her left side (her dominant side) ever again, coupled with the fact that my father only went blind 3 years ago so I now have 2 disabled parents whom I may need to start taking care of on a regular basis, has been anything but remarkable

I was told to get CIGNA to look into ADA accommodations. However, I needed the accommodation immediately, and CIGNA can take weeks, if not months, to get established. In that moment I needed to know that I could do my job while also helping my family through this horribly difficult time, and I was told to jump through hoops like a circus animal and maybe I would still have a job after, but probably would not be paid for the time off. I could apply for the Employee Grant, but that’s not a guarantee, and I have to apply for it after I’ve already lost the pay. As I’m living paycheck to paycheck right now, that would mean I would probably be facing eviction by the time I would receive any assistance. 

Accommodations were simply thrown out the window and when my friends ask how I’m doing and if my job is being understanding, I cannot say that they are. Between the points system, which punishes you for being ill or having to care for family, and my boss’s cold, indifferent, and unsympathetic attitude towards me, I feel as though I am literally just a number, an expendable employee who is simply there to be a robot. 

As I stated at the beginning of this email, I would love the chance to discuss this with you to find a solution. So if anyone else is ever put in this position, they are treated with dignity, respect, and sympathy, rather than cold, unfeeling retaliation and robotic responses. So future employees do not have to jump through hoops in order to have simple and understandable accommodations made as they work on getting the rest lined up.

You can reach me at this email, my personal email *blocked*, or through text or calls at my cell number *blocked*. 

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

*my name*

We had a lovely conversation with my boss, her boss, and a new HR rep. But did anything change? No. If anything, I started getting micromanaged even more.

There is so much more to the story than this, but I - I just don’t have the time or energy to type it up.

Maybe I will another day.

But in conclusion - I should have known. Shame on me for allowing myself to be fooled.

[yuesya]

Of Dogs and Lions [Prologue][1/2]

.

Small exercise. I blame this on the fact that I’ve been introduced to the world of ‘isekai’ light novels recently…

.

Title: Of Dogs and Lions

Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Summary: In which conspiracies are plotted, children are burned, and a girl dies. But not necessarily in that order. [SI-OC, AU]

Warning: At this point, all I know about Avatar: The Last Airbender comes from reading fanfiction (Mainly Vathara’s Embers and Against.The.Current’s Kaze no Uta). I haven’t actually watched the series itself, though I’m definitely planning to do so as soon as I can! … This… is not something I usually do when writing fanfiction, generally speaking, but ATLA is really long, and I wanted to get down to some writing, so… voila. Putting up a fair warning here beforehand that I’ll be taking many creative liberties in this piece. This will be very AU!

.

00. Prologue – ‘Promised’

.

It would’ve been helpful, she thinks, if there had been an instruction manual for this. Unfortunately, that is not to be.

Once again, Christina peers ahead into the darkness, and finds herself stumped by the complete and utter lack of… well, anything at all, to be honest. If this is what death is supposed to be like, then she thinks she has a good idea of why people try to avoid dying so much aside from simply being fearful of the unknown. As it is, though, she’s tried nearly everything in her books already –shouting, jumping, running– but nothing that she’s done seems to have triggered anything. Everything in her surroundings remains stubbornly dark and still, dull and gloomy, and no matter how far she walks, she doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

And after having walked for quite some time (minutes? hours? … days?), Christina had finally reached the reluctant conclusion that it appears to be quite boring, this whole ‘being dead’ business. She definitely would’ve tried harder to stay alive, if she had known that this was what awaited her in death. Or rather, if she had known that nothing awaited a person in death.

Definitely, definitely would’ve tried harder.

… As far as deaths go, death via direct lightning strike was probably one of the more impressive ways to die. Because the chances of being struck by lightning head-on rather than being caught in the crossfire from some nearby conduit were so phenomenally low that they might as well be zero. Admittedly, this was not so impressive in light of the fact that her unfortunate accident of a rather fatal nature happened due to the fact that she had headed straight into the storm rather than evacuate simply because she was a dedicated photographer trying to catch a better frame for her pictures, but, well.

Well.

She’s not really holding out any hope for her film rolls to be undamaged, because that’s pretty much impossible, given the lightning and what not… but she kind of wishes that she could’ve at least gotten to print the results of her latest photo shoot before her untimely demise, at the very least. Some of the shots she’d gotten in before the lightning came down on her were epic. She’d spent so long scouting out the land and finding the best vantage points to take pictures from once reports of the record-breaking storm came out; to know that all her efforts would be for nothing…

…

There’s no use lamenting what-if’s and what-could’ve-been’s, though. It’s disappointing, certainly. It’s certainly a damn fine shame, is what it is, but…

But there’s nothing she can do about it anymore at this point.

I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.

Right. Because she’s dead and currently stranded in the middle of nowhere right now, there’s nothing she can possibly–

–wait a second.

Is that a voice?

Christina comes to an abrupt halt in her tracks as soon as the second thought processes itself in her mind, whirling around to see… nothing.

Strangely enough, nothing has changed. But that’s alright. Even though the world around her still remains empty and dark, she knows what she heard; it’s not a hallucination, it was definitely another human voice that she’d heard just now! There’s no mistake about that!

Finally!

Finally, finally something is happening!

… Even if she’s not quite sure where the disembodied voice is coming from, even if she’s uncertain as to what it’s referring to, exactly, even if she has no idea why there’s suddenly a voice in midst of all this darkness –at least it’s something. And in this desolate world of nothingness, she’ll take what she can get, thank you very much.

“Hello?” she tries. Nothing changes. Her surroundings remain dark and empty, mocking her efforts, but Christina presses on, undaunted. It’s not like she has anything left to lose, what with being dead and all. “Hey, um, is someone out there? Anyone?”

Please! Please, Doctor Sai, you must have a way–

Milady, I know this must be very distressing for you, but… truly, I’ve already done all that I can. To attempt anything more would be beyond my power. My sincerest apologies.

No… no…!

Ah. It seems that the owners of these voices talking to each other out there cannot hear her, for some reason…? Christina clicks her tongue briefly, before re-attempting to draw their attention by raising her voice. Maybe it’s just a matter of volume?

“Excuse me!” she calls out, hands cupping around her mouth. “Could I have a word, please? It’ll only take a moment; I’d just like to know how to get out of here!”

What is the meaning of this here? Doctor, speak.

My lord! My lord husband, please–

Hush, my love. What is going on, doctor?

… It is as you see before you, milord. The lady’s child… she is not… I’m sorry.

No… how can this be?

… As it turns out, it’s not just a matter of volume. Go figure. Just how is it her luck that the only sign of something in this world of nothing that she receives is only a one-way street from her end?

A heavy sigh bursts free from her lips and Christina reflexively tilts her head back, one hand automatically reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

Geez. Back to square one it is for her, then, eh? It was a bit of a wild shot in the first place, anyways; not like she could even really make out all the words that were being spoken, but… no matter. She’ll figure something out. It’s what she’s always done in face of unexpected situations, isn’t it?

Granted, there’s a rather large difference between trying to figure out what happens after dying instead of, say, fixing a car that suddenly broke down on the road or figuring out how to get the bills paid on time when the family’s breadwinner was down for the count–

Her family.

Her family.

Christina frowns, stilling her movements, mind awhirl.

It’s… strange. She’s dead. She’s dead, so she should be… missing her family, right? Mourning the loss of her beloved family? But strangely enough, she doesn’t feel anything, even though she knows, intellectually, that she should be sad right now. Upset. Heartbroken. And it’s not like she’s a cold, cruel, unfeeling person; Christina loves her family. Truly, she loves them. Not so much the mother she never knew, but she adores more than anything else in the world those quiet moments in the evening when she curls up on the misshapen couch in the sitting room with her cute little sister and a book in hand, while their father takes a moment to look at the evening news next to them.

But right now, in this very moment, when finally occurs to her that her family, she will never see her family again… she doesn’t feel anything. She doesn’t feel anything at all. And isn’t it strange, for a girl who loves her father and sister as much as Christina does?

Christina isn’t sure how long she’s been dead by this point, meandering aimlessly through the endless expanse of empty darkness on wandering feet until she’d finally heard the disembodied voices ringing in the background, but she hadn’t so much as even thought about her family until now. No. No, that’s not right. Her mind was intact and there were rational thoughts filtering through the forefront of her consciousness, but had she really even been thinking about anything at all?

… Christina remembers the storm. Howling winds akin to thundering gales, pitch-black rain twisting and falling and folding over itself like sheets of bone-thin needles in the night. And lightning, the lightning. First a blinding flash, a thin streak in the sky that lit up the entire world, then there was the bone-rattling thunder that followed, more and more and more that just kept building up to a crescendo and–

And what happened after that?

She knows she’s dead. She remembers it –not entirely, thank god for small mercies, but she definitely remembers the last-minute realization of ‘Oh shit’ and the sheer PAIN that lanced through her, white-hot and burning, it… it’s not something that you forget easily, an experience like that. And even now, dead or not, sometimes it feels as if there are small electric pulses tingling in her non-existent astral projection of a body, or something like that. If she concentrates on it, focuses on it–

Point is, Christina might not remember every little detail about dying, but she remembers dying. And between dying and arriving in this not-quite afterlife of nothingness, well… there had to be some sort of transition between the two points, right? Yet, perplexingly enough, she recalls nothing about that. She remembers dying, and she is aware that she’s been walking for so long in this endless expanse of darkness where absolutely nothing else existed, but she has no idea how she came to be here, now that she truly stops and thinks about her situation.

… It’s terrifying, that she hadn’t even realized something truly amiss, not until she’d thought of her family, the family that she can’t even find it in herself to properly mourn for anymore. She remembers them, her beloved father and her adorable sister, but for some obscure reason, she doesn’t feel anything for them anymore… there is no warm rush of affection or fondness when thinking of their faces, no crushing weight of grief upon knowing that they were as surely lost to her now as she was to them.

Is it because she’s dead? Did being dead somehow dull one’s emotions?

If she’d still possessed a beating heart at this moment and been capable of properly processing her feelings, Christina has no doubt that it would’ve been beating a wild, erratic thump-thump-thump rhythm of staccato panic. Double-time.

“Fuck.”

And then, because important things bear repeating, a much more heartfelt: “Fuck.”

… But no. No, it wouldn’t do her any good to dwell on her strange state of mind right now. Focus on other things. Where are the others? She’s not the first person to have died before. She can’t be. So then why, pray tell –why in the world is she all alone and going insane in this plane of darkness? Sentient and aware, might she add?

“That is indeed a good question to be wondering, child… You are quite a long way from home. May I presume that this was not intentional on your behalf?”

Christina whips around.

.

Of Dogs and Lions: Prologue [1/2] - END.

[ber39james]

8 More Wondrous Winter Idioms

Feeling under the weather? Walking on thin ice with your vocabulary variety? These idioms will have a snowball effect on your language use this winter. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Take a chill pill

If you’re going to tell someone to calm down, why not do it in rhyme? “Chill” means a feeling of coldness, as in, “there was a chill in the air.” Sometime in recent decades, probably the 1970s, the word also came to mean “relax”—just imagine a hippie flower child flashing a peace sign and saying “Chill out, dude.”

Eventually, “Take a chill pill” emerged. It might have shown up in the early days of ADD and ADHD medications like Ritalin, which were designed to calm hyperactive folks and therefore very logically dubbed “chill pills.” Other sources attribute the origin of the phrase to 1990s slang, specifically, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you’re stressed about the actual origin, we’ve got one thing to say: take a chill pill.

Cold shoulder

If Cher turns her back on Dion, Dion will see Cher’s shoulder. And the act shows dismissal or indifference to Dion, so it’s pretty unfriendly, or “cold.” Boom: an idiom is born.

Some unsavory sources claim that a custom back in Shakespearean times was to serve unwelcome guests a “cold shoulder of mutton”—i.e., not the tastiest meal, and a hard-to-miss sign of “would you be so kind as to get out. Now.” But etymologists are chilly on that origin, tending to favor reports that Scottish author Sir Walter Scott coined the phrase “cauld shouther” in 1816. With that literary proof, you can turn a cold shoulder on the meat story.

Cold turkey

Let’s say you love turkey. You eat it all the time. Then, the doctor tells you it’s bad for you. You better stop eating it—right away. Really? You can’t just slowly ease off it, eating a little less turkey each day until you’re down to none? NO. No more turkey for you.

That’s called “going cold turkey”: abruptly stopping a habit that’s bad for you. People often use this term when they talk about ways to stop smoking or taking a drug, but you can also use it when you’re talking about diet or other habits. The phrase may come from addiction doctors in the 1970s, noting the “cold, clammy feel of the skin during withdrawal,” while its earlier uses (back to the 1800s) have to do with straightforward talk or a sudden occurrence.

(Note: Grammarly is not licensed to give medical opinions about turkey.)

Under the weather

Weather can be nice and sunny or cloudy and miserable. In the case of this idiom, the idea is the latter. If you’re under a raincloud, chances are you’re not going to feel 100% healthy, happy, and ready to party. So if you’re feeling sick, “under the weather” is a way to say so.

If you ever forget, just visualize getting followed around by a raincloud. That should remind you to feel sick. Etymologists believe that the first folks to say it were probably sailors in the 1800s. If you’re feeling sniffly, consider yourself lucky you’re not also on a ship at sea.

In cold blood

“In cold blood” means without mercy or emotion, suggesting that a cruel act was committed in a calculated, unfeeling way. It’s usually used pretty violently: “The victim was murdered in cold blood,” or “Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan in cold blood.”

Etymologists trace the idea to the 1700s or even 1500s. Medicine back then wasn’t exactly what it is now, so people thought that blood got hot in the heat of passion. Therefore, to do something dispassionately was to act “in cold blood.”

If you go on a diet cold turkey, you might feel like you did this to yourself in cold blood. It’s just that painful.

Snowball effect

If something has a snowball effect, that means it might start out small, but keeps growing in importance. Just picture it: a snowball is rolling down a snowy hill, and as it rolls, it gathers more and more snow, getting bigger and bigger. Next thing you know, you’re running from an avalanche.

While an avalanche is usually bad, a snowball effect can be a bad thing or a good thing. You buy an Xbox, and then a trip to Cancun, and then a car, and then go into debt: that string of purchases has a snowball effect on your finances. Bad. One black woman becomes an engineer, and she paves the way for other minorities to get similar jobs, and that creates a snowball effect that leads to equality in the workplace. Good. (Also the plot of Hidden Figures). One person protests a government, the government arrests him, then more people protest, and back and forth until the government makes reforms or gets overthrown. Could be bad or good, depending on the government. But either way, that first person started a snowball effect.

When hell freezes over

Most notions of hell are that it’s a pretty hot place to be. So the chances that it would freeze there? Pretty much zero. “When hell freezes over” is basically a way to say “never.” There are variations on the “freezing in hell” phrase, too. Here are examples of each: “I suppose you think you can go on living on [the Union] till hell freezes over.” —Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Lieutenant-Governor (the first-recorded use of the phrase was in this book in 1903) “My first writing teacher told me it would be a cold day in hell if I ever won a National Board of Review award.” –Terence Winter (writer of The Wolf of Wall Street) “I don’t think the president’s plan has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.” —General James Conway

Walking on thin ice

Again, this one gives a pretty clear mental picture: you go for a walk on a lake that’s iced over, but if the ice isn’t very thick, you might crack it and fall to a shivery doom. It’s a metaphor for being in a situation that might be dangerous or lead to negative consequences. If a kid is whining a lot and refusing to go to bed, her parents might tell her, “you’re on thin ice.” If an employee has been late to work every day for two weeks and is caught asleep at his desk, he’s probably walking on thin ice with his boss. Variations include “treading on thin ice,” “skating on thin ice,” or just “on thin ice.” The idiom’s first recorded use was in 1841: “In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prudence

The tip of the iceberg

Less than 10 percent of an iceberg’s mass shows up above the water’s surface. That’s why they spell disaster for a fair number of ships, including the famous, Oscar-winning Titanic, which had an accident with the mass that was lurking below. As an idiom, “tip of the iceberg” means a small or visible part of a much bigger issue, and it usually has a negative connotation. For example: Sherlock finds the first clue to a murder, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg in unraveling a grand conspiracy. A classroom is using outdated textbooks because the school can’t afford new editions. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg where funding for education is concerned. On a brighter note, in the musical words of the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma: “I’ve always thought the sound that you make is just the tip of the iceberg, like the person that you see physically is just the tip of the iceberg as well.” That may just be the tip of the iceberg where winter idioms are concerned, but now if you’re put on the spot for a frigid phrase, you’ll have more than a snowball’s chance in hell.

The post 8 More Wondrous Winter Idioms appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/8-more-wondrous-winter-idioms/

[arthur36domingo]

8 More Wondrous Winter Idioms

Feeling under the weather? Walking on thin ice with your vocabulary variety? These idioms will have a snowball effect on your language use this winter. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Take a chill pill

If you’re going to tell someone to calm down, why not do it in rhyme? “Chill” means a feeling of coldness, as in, “there was a chill in the air.” Sometime in recent decades, probably the 1970s, the word also came to mean “relax”—just imagine a hippie flower child flashing a peace sign and saying “Chill out, dude.”

Eventually, “Take a chill pill” emerged. It might have shown up in the early days of ADD and ADHD medications like Ritalin, which were designed to calm hyperactive folks and therefore very logically dubbed “chill pills.” Other sources attribute the origin of the phrase to 1990s slang, specifically, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you’re stressed about the actual origin, we’ve got one thing to say: take a chill pill.

Cold shoulder

If Cher turns her back on Dion, Dion will see Cher’s shoulder. And the act shows dismissal or indifference to Dion, so it’s pretty unfriendly, or “cold.” Boom: an idiom is born.

Some unsavory sources claim that a custom back in Shakespearean times was to serve unwelcome guests a “cold shoulder of mutton”—i.e., not the tastiest meal, and a hard-to-miss sign of “would you be so kind as to get out. Now.” But etymologists are chilly on that origin, tending to favor reports that Scottish author Sir Walter Scott coined the phrase “cauld shouther” in 1816. With that literary proof, you can turn a cold shoulder on the meat story.

Cold turkey

Let’s say you love turkey. You eat it all the time. Then, the doctor tells you it’s bad for you. You better stop eating it—right away. Really? You can’t just slowly ease off it, eating a little less turkey each day until you’re down to none? NO. No more turkey for you.

That’s called “going cold turkey”: abruptly stopping a habit that’s bad for you. People often use this term when they talk about ways to stop smoking or taking a drug, but you can also use it when you’re talking about diet or other habits. The phrase may come from addiction doctors in the 1970s, noting the “cold, clammy feel of the skin during withdrawal,” while its earlier uses (back to the 1800s) have to do with straightforward talk or a sudden occurrence.

(Note: Grammarly is not licensed to give medical opinions about turkey.)

Under the weather

Weather can be nice and sunny or cloudy and miserable. In the case of this idiom, the idea is the latter. If you’re under a raincloud, chances are you’re not going to feel 100% healthy, happy, and ready to party. So if you’re feeling sick, “under the weather” is a way to say so.

If you ever forget, just visualize getting followed around by a raincloud. That should remind you to feel sick. Etymologists believe that the first folks to say it were probably sailors in the 1800s. If you’re feeling sniffly, consider yourself lucky you’re not also on a ship at sea.

In cold blood

“In cold blood” means without mercy or emotion, suggesting that a cruel act was committed in a calculated, unfeeling way. It’s usually used pretty violently: “The victim was murdered in cold blood,” or “Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan in cold blood.”

Etymologists trace the idea to the 1700s or even 1500s. Medicine back then wasn’t exactly what it is now, so people thought that blood got hot in the heat of passion. Therefore, to do something dispassionately was to act “in cold blood.”

If you go on a diet cold turkey, you might feel like you did this to yourself in cold blood. It’s just that painful.

Snowball effect

If something has a snowball effect, that means it might start out small, but keeps growing in importance. Just picture it: a snowball is rolling down a snowy hill, and as it rolls, it gathers more and more snow, getting bigger and bigger. Next thing you know, you’re running from an avalanche.

While an avalanche is usually bad, a snowball effect can be a bad thing or a good thing. You buy an Xbox, and then a trip to Cancun, and then a car, and then go into debt: that string of purchases has a snowball effect on your finances. Bad. One black woman becomes an engineer, and she paves the way for other minorities to get similar jobs, and that creates a snowball effect that leads to equality in the workplace. Good. (Also the plot of Hidden Figures). One person protests a government, the government arrests him, then more people protest, and back and forth until the government makes reforms or gets overthrown. Could be bad or good, depending on the government. But either way, that first person started a snowball effect.

When hell freezes over

Most notions of hell are that it’s a pretty hot place to be. So the chances that it would freeze there? Pretty much zero. “When hell freezes over” is basically a way to say “never.” There are variations on the “freezing in hell” phrase, too. Here are examples of each: “I suppose you think you can go on living on [the Union] till hell freezes over.” —Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Lieutenant-Governor (the first-recorded use of the phrase was in this book in 1903) “My first writing teacher told me it would be a cold day in hell if I ever won a National Board of Review award.” –Terence Winter (writer of The Wolf of Wall Street) “I don’t think the president’s plan has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding.” —General James Conway

Walking on thin ice

Again, this one gives a pretty clear mental picture: you go for a walk on a lake that’s iced over, but if the ice isn’t very thick, you might crack it and fall to a shivery doom. It’s a metaphor for being in a situation that might be dangerous or lead to negative consequences. If a kid is whining a lot and refusing to go to bed, her parents might tell her, “you’re on thin ice.” If an employee has been late to work every day for two weeks and is caught asleep at his desk, he’s probably walking on thin ice with his boss. Variations include “treading on thin ice,” “skating on thin ice,” or just “on thin ice.” The idiom’s first recorded use was in 1841: “In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prudence

The tip of the iceberg

Less than 10 percent of an iceberg’s mass shows up above the water’s surface. That’s why they spell disaster for a fair number of ships, including the famous, Oscar-winning Titanic, which had an accident with the mass that was lurking below. As an idiom, “tip of the iceberg” means a small or visible part of a much bigger issue, and it usually has a negative connotation. For example: Sherlock finds the first clue to a murder, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg in unraveling a grand conspiracy. A classroom is using outdated textbooks because the school can’t afford new editions. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg where funding for education is concerned. On a brighter note, in the musical words of the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma: “I’ve always thought the sound that you make is just the tip of the iceberg, like the person that you see physically is just the tip of the iceberg as well.” That may just be the tip of the iceberg where winter idioms are concerned, but now if you’re put on the spot for a frigid phrase, you’ll have more than a snowball’s chance in hell.

The post 8 More Wondrous Winter Idioms appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/8-more-wondrous-winter-idioms/