Tim "Shoe" Sullivan. (Contributed)

Shoe Column: Say that again?

By Tim “Shoe” Sullivan

The English language can be very confusing—like taking the plural of something.

You see a mouse. If you see more than one, you see some mice—not mouses.

There is one goose. If there’s more than one, now there’s geese.

But what about deer? There’s one deer. If there are two of them, there’s two deer. “Look! There’s a deer!” Or, “Look. There’s a couple of deer.” Doesn’t make sense.

But not “deers.” You never say deers.

You have to think long and hard about some phrases you hear. Like “to tell you the truth.” You hear that all the time. He said: “Well, to tell you the truth…” So you wonder, what were you telling me before? Fibs? Were you fibbing? Why are you going to tell me the truth now? So you weren’t doing that earlier? Should I believe what you said earlier?

Or like, “It was like beating a dead horse.” Who would really do that? Many of us have never seen a dead horse. Why in the world would anyone want to beat one?

I’m here to tell you some of those sayings just don’t make much sense. Literally. And of course I’m here to tell you that. Where else would I be?

There’s more. Like, “He was barking up the wrong tree.” Huh? When is the last time you saw a guy barking when he was standing under a tree? Is it proper to bark under some trees but not others? Confusion.

Does the cat got your tongue? What does it do with it? If the cat got your tongue, do you still have it? How did the cat get it?

You have to do something to “break the ice.” This shouldn’t be difficult. You take a hammer and hit the ice until it breaks—nothing to it.

It’s the way the cookie crumbles. Who actually takes a cookie and crumbles it? It just makes a mess, ain’t it?

You know what they say. Really? Who is “they?” “They” could be an expert. An expert is someone who’s out of town. And why should I listen to “they” anyway? Who does “they” think they are?

You can be busy as a bee or busy as a beaver. Pick one. I’ve seen a bee flying around that didn’t seem “busy” at all. And I’ve never seen a live beaver. Except for Beaver Cleaver with Eddie Haskell.

Let bygones be bygones. Okay. So what is a bygone? And whatever it is, let it be bygone.

“When pigs fly.” I never saw a pig fly. Except once. In Green Acres. Arnold Ziffle was in a plane.

He’s gonna go see a man about a horse. Oh? Is he gonna get it straight from the horse’s mouth? Can a horse talk? Does a horse just horse around? Go right to the source and ask the horse.

And don’t beat around the bush. You can beat around a tree, but not a bush. And there is never someone barking up the wrong bush. Just the wrong tree.

Because it’s water over the dam. Or over the bridge. Is water under the dam, too? Or under the bridge? Is London Bridge still falling down?

He has to bury the hatchet. Where? Does he dig a small hole and put a hatchet in it and fill up the hole again? How deep is the hole? What if he doesn’t have a hatchet? Will an axe work?

There’s no two ways about it. But that’s not even accurate. What about a two-way street? A two-way street does go two ways.

And then there’s the one nobody wants to hear: “It is what it is.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, when someone says, “It is what it is,” that’s not good. It is what it is is never good.

And I’m not gonna beat around the bush. To tell you the truth, and I’m not barking up the wrong tree, but…

There’s no two ways about it.

Because it is what it is.