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Perhaps a better example would be "he was born on third base and thought he hit a home run," vs. "he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth." The latter is e
by spoonjim 5y ago
Perhaps a better example would be "he was born on third base and thought he hit a home run," vs. "he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth." The latter is easy to figure out but unless you know about baseball it's hard to figure out the first.
- ajuc 5y agoIdioms can be hard when they are presented in abstract like that. But if somebody said "Trump calls himself a genius businessman. He was born on third base and thought he hit a home run." I would know what it means no problem. That's what I meant by guessing from context.
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoIt sounds like this idiom has been comically overextended for effect, though. Sometimes this is funny, sometimes it's aggravating. In this case, funny and extremely apt.
- JohnBooty 5y agoThe latter is easy to figure out That misquote would confuse even somebody who knows baseball. The actual quote is, "There are many people who don`t know what real pressure is. Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-14-8604030680-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1986-12-14-860403...
- jfengel 5y agoTrue, though "thinking they hit a home run" is a nice extension of the same concept: not only do they think that they deserve what they got for no effort, but are actually angry that they didn't get more. (Coincidentally, I used exactly that expression, precisely that way, earlier today. Unless somehow the OP read what I wrote, which isn't impossible.)
- spoonjim 5y agoHaha of course.