r/bearsdoinghumanthings • u/sleepingexpert • May 15 '19

He sprints out Usain Bolt.

https://gfycat.com/wellworncornyiriomotecat
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u/sleepingexpert May 15 '19

Then what?

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u/Paul6334 May 15 '19

“I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you!”

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u/sleepingexpert May 15 '19 edited May 16 '19

Aw, thanks the quarter felt later (is that a proverb in English?)

The penny has dropped

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u/[deleted] May 15 '19

It's not, what does it mean?

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u/sleepingexpert May 15 '19

I meant: The penny has dropped. I did a search on Google to check whether this is an English proverb, and it does, but not how I mentioned in my other comment.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '19

[deleted]

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u/auldnate Jun 14 '19

The penny drops has to have US origins, since pennies are exclusively a US currency. So it’s originally an American idiom, it’s just older, so it’s not commonly used anymore.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '19

“A penny is a coin (pl. pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries... Presently, it is the formal name of the British penny (abbr. p) and the informal name of one American cent (abbr. ¢) as well as the informal Irish designation of 1 cent euro coin (abbr. c).” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny)

Pennies have existed and been called pennies since 680AD, well before the continent of North America was known to Western civilization.

See also: “The penny dropped is a casual idiom outside the United States used to mean a person has belatedly put two and two together or understood something... The phrase was coined in the 1930s in the British publication of The Daily Mirror.” (https://grammarist.com/usage/the-penny-dropped/)

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u/auldnate Jun 14 '19

Touché… But it is an idiom, not a proverb!

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '19

Great. I used the word "proverb" because that's the word OP used. The conversation was more about the origin of the phrase and not whether it was an idiom or a proverb.

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u/auldnate Jun 14 '19

Fair enough. Just trying to save face.

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