Lip chap.
"What!!???!!!" you say? "That's not really a phrase, hell....I've never heard that"
Really? Do you not hang out with any 15-30 year old females? Well I feel sorry for you. I however seem to have surrounded myself with this sub-species, and have found this to be a common incorrectly used expression, especially in winter.
An example....
"It's so dry in here, does anyone have any lip chap I can borrow???"
Um....sure, let me just scrape some of the dry chappy skin off of my lips and give it to you....and as far as borrowing it goes....don't worry about it. You can keep it.
The problem is called lip chap.....well...not really even....but for a 15-30 year old female we'll let that slide. The solution to the problem is called chap stick. Or lip gloss. Or blistex. Or....well.....whatever....you get the idea.
Why would you ask for the problem itself when you're actually looking for the solution to the problem?
When you head to the pharmacy wanting your birth controldo you ask the pharmacist "can you help me get an unwanted pregnancy?"
When you go to the garage, and you need an oil change do you ask for a seized engine?
When you're feeling kinda hungry do you head down to the restaurant and ask for a starving Ethiopian fly-baby?
So.....why do people ask for lip chap when they're wanting something for chapped lips?
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Jack Name :: Fabulous Soundtracks
23 hours ago
1 comment:
Little 85 yr old women use the expression as well...believed to be a combination of words that the speaker cannot remember. Like the person has a problem with dry lips, so they go up the the clerk and say, "hmmm do you have some.. hmm...lip...(and they might be thinking 'lipstick', no, I've never heard it called lipstick which is something else entirely, 'lip balm' hmm, that's a little pretentious, hmm...'lip gloss', no that's the stuff those kids use like petrolatum jelly...hmm 'lip chap', no that doesn't seem quite right; there's a 'chap' in the word and I have chapped lips, but at least this clerk knows what I'm talking about". Sometimes, little old 85 yr old ladies refer to it as 'lip ice' as well, but wouldn't be able to hazard a guess to the etymology of that.
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