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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2011-09-16 08:28:30

David Bird
Eggcornista
From: The Hammer, Ontario
Registered: 2009-07-28
Posts: 1690

"lemon's terms" and "lemmings terms" for layman's terms

The altered expressions for layman’s terms in the archives have replaced laity with weakness and keening, from lame man’s terms, to lamer and lamest terms, to laments terms. On its own petting stool is our Lehmann’s terms. From whence come lemon’s terms? If it has any semantic justification, I figure it to mean either “tart, frank”, or “weak, debased, subpar”.

I have BT broadband connection and I use it to access my e-mail via outlook
express and Yahoo’s web site, as BT seems to work in partnership with Yahoo,
although knowone seems to be able to explain to me in lemon’s terms why you
pay your bills to BT, but when you have a problem, you need to contact BT
Yahoo.
Wireless forum

The list goes on and on! What they fail to mention (in lemon’s terms) is that the zoom only works when you take pictures with 3.1 Mega-pixels or less.
ebay comment

To be honest, the whole organisation is probably only one or two people. They’ve admitted in the past that most of their DDoS power comes from a botnet they’ve created out of the DDoS attacks on Amazon/Paypal/Mastercard at the start of the year (the whole wikileaks thing). People are overestimating these ‘hackers’ if they think that they’re a super-group of elite programmers etc. They’re just some people who know how to abuse widely documented holes in SQL databases.
[Response 1]: Can someone please explain this in lemon’s terms?
...[Response]: uh… I think you mean “layman’s” terms. :)
...[Response]: My first thought when reading “Lemon’s terms” was that it meant “please explain this in the terms that Liz Lemon would use when talking to Tracy Jordan”. In my mind, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable turn of phrase!
Gamer Forum reacts to arrest of 19 y.o. hacker

Each day, we go throughout our lives unable to realize that we leave a carbon footprint. This is, in lemon’s terms, how much energy and pollution we create as one person.
Global change forum

Upon the Grantors spouse or upon Grantors death if his spouse shall predecease him, the Family Trust shall continue to run for the additional period hereinafter provided [more legalese]. What does this mean in lemon terms?
Legal issues forum

first of all is ASIAN not asain, which says a lot about how well educated are you, so giving you an answer will be like talking to a non educated person, aka = waste of my time or in lemon terms yes you are racist, and you are wrong.
Yahoo questions

Lemmings terms might generously be interpreted as a reference to “popular, run of the mill, mass market”. All but one hit I found were from furry little gamers.

at first every one was like WOOOOOOWWW COD4 WILL BE GOTY, now when this new news came out, its turned into medicore, trash, by lemmings terms
Call of Duty Gamer forum

you have to consider that increases in wages lag behind real inflation, so in Lemmings terms: the real price of games today is higher than what they were just a couple of years ago.
Swedish gamers

im still no understanding HP washin can some explain it to me in lemmings terms
Game forum

to quote me verbatim I simply asked you how was EQ treating you, in lemmings terms meaning I was not playing EQ, but that concept for you must be hard to understand.
Gamers again

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#2 2017-11-15 11:45:45

Peter Forster
Eggcornista
From: UK
Registered: 2006-09-06
Posts: 1222

Re: "lemon's terms" and "lemmings terms" for layman's terms

I was about to post something on ‘lemming’ for ‘lemon’ when I stumbled upon this, and felt that all the oranges, laymen and suchlike might like to be together.

Leaving aside its fruity manifestation, lemon in AmEnglish is used to denote some unserviceable mechanical device, particularly a car. In BrEnglish it can indicate a person in an embarrassing or humiliating situation.
The Cassell Dictionary of Slang has as one of its definitions of lemon: a piece of excrement. (rhy. sl. lemon curd = TURD n.¹) which nicely illustrates that sense of shame and worthlessness behind feeling like a lemon. Since for us g-droppers ‘lemon’ and ‘lemming’ are homophones, confusion between the two is no surprise.

My son missed out 12 bars on one of his pieces and stood there like a lemming!

After being kept stood there like a lemming I was eventually seated once the waiter had finished playing with the computer!

I was expecting Keblish to unveil his legislative redistricting proposal at the Legislature last night. silly me. he just sat there like a lemming.

This workshop is about doing, not just sitting there like a lemming.

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#3 2017-11-16 18:43:22

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "lemon's terms" and "lemmings terms" for layman's terms

Interesting. Partridge also thinks that “standing around like a lemon” has scatological origins, though not through rhyming slang: https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_boa … s/658.html


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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