Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Potatoes

‘Couch potato’ is a phrase, which everybody knows already. I’ve also found ‘mouse potato’, which means a person glued all the time to the computer or tv screen, (treated as one of the English neologisms). Do you know any other types of ‘potatoes’?

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Oops, I've made a mistake. A small correction will be needed here: 'mouse potato' isn't glued to the TV screen but only to computer one. Isn't that phrase for a computer freak nice? what do you think about it? These 'potato' expressions have been making amazing career in Polish language. Couch potato has already been calqued into Polish as 'sitting potato'. I've come across it in one of the student magazines and it appeared in the phrase 'the epoch of sitting potatoes'.

marta Aug-10-2004

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hahah, I find "sitting potato" to be a very amusing phrase.

I don't see why you couldn't use different types of potato phrases however you liked, as a joke. Just pick a place where people sit around not moving for long periods of time. Like "beach potato" or "deck potato." But I'm pretty sure only mouse and couch have been widely used.

arana Aug-14-2004

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"Hot Potato" = a subject or topic you don't want to discuss. Literally, something that is too hot to handle for too long, or you'll get burnt.

David5 Aug-30-2004

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Well, 'hot potato' doesn't mean any kind of a person but it refers to an abstract inanimate thing. What I need are 'potato' people that is the people with special features, insisting on doing sth for long hours e.g 'beach potatoes' who love lying on the beach and basking in the sun. Any other 'potato' suggestions?

marta1 Aug-31-2004

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I agree with Arana. Inactive people are not referred to generally as potatoes; "mouse potato" has only caught on because of the wordplay involved.

Hereby proposed: "spouse potato," a lazy spouse.

It would be great if the more general usage made its way back to English from Polish.

spaztic Nov-18-2004

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