Weekly English Words with Alisha - Discrete Insults

Hi! Welcome back to weekly words. My name is Alisha and this week we are going to look

at discreet insults. I like this already.

The first phrase is “the lights are on but nobody is home”.

This phrase means that somebody seems to look aware of whatever is going on around them

but in their head, they don’t really understand. In a house where you can see in the windows

of the house that the lights are on in the house but there is no one actually inside.

If the same meaning inside someone’s head, it means that they are not very smart.

In a sentence, my co-worker isn’t very smart. Well, he is the kind of guy who makes you

think the lights are on, but nobody is home.

Next, “space-cadet”. I love this phrase. I use this from time to

time. Again, doesn’t seem to be very aware or very smart or very conscious of what’s

going on around them. Their head has a lot of space in it, perhaps. So maybe this phrase

comes from the expression to space out. I am a bit of a space cadet sometimes. I just

stop thinking about all the things that are happening around me and go somewhere else

in my mind for a while. That’s true.

Onward, “even a stopped clock is right twice a day”. So this phrase is used to explain

maybe someone or something who is not traditionally good at something or someone, who is broken

or does not do things well, is capable of, you know, doing something correctly sometimes.

A clock that’s broken and doesn’t move will at two points in the day show the correct

time on a traditional clock. So a person who, for example, isn’t good at playing sports,

maybe one day, they have a really, really lucky day and they played sports really, really

well, you might say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. He did a great job this

afternoon.

This is a fun one, “not the brightest bulb in the box”.

There are a lot of variations on this phrase, “not the sharpest tool in the shed”; we

changed this one up a little bit, too, like “not the longest fry in the happy meal”.

Basically it just means that the person that you are talking about is not the smartest

person that you know. It’s used to insult their intelligence primarily. If you think

about this expression quite literally, to be the brightest bulb in the box of light

bulbs it would mean to shine brightly, to be very good at what you are doing. But to

not be the brightest bulb, maybe it means you don’t do such a good job at what you

are supposed to be doing. In a sentence, let’s see… one of my friends,

she is not the brightest bulb in the box. She makes some really strange decisions sometimes.

Next, a very similar phrase, “a few peas short of a casserole”.

This is very similar. I’ve never heard this one actually. This phrase is again to insult

someone’s intelligence. If you are making food, if you are making a casserole, you need

to use peas maybe depending on your recipe and if there aren’t enough peas, the casserole

will not be very good maybe. So this means maybe somebody is missing the things that

they need in their mind in order to do something correctly.

My friend, my other friend Stevens, that guy is a few peas short of a casserole. He should

have done some things and he didn’t do.

Oh well, look at all of these. About as sharp as a marble. Well, that’s a good one. Only

one oar in the water, ah my grandfather used to use that. I love that one. These are great.

I got to remember some of these. Dumber than a bag of hammers, yeah. What do you mean?

We are clever. Donated his brain to science before he was done with it. When do I stop,

as quick as a snail crossing superglue. His cornbread isn’t down on the middle. Thanks,

I mentioned The End 2012. End. If you use these, be very careful because

if the other person can hear you, they will likely be very offended. Thanks very much

for joining us this week and we’ll see you again next time, bye.