Time to crawl back under my stone.

Hongyi Zhao

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Mar 19, 2015, 12:57:01 AM3/19/15

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Hi all,

What's the meaning of this sentence:

Time to crawl back under my stone.

Regards
--
.: Hongyi Zhao [ hongyi.zhao AT gmail.com ] Free as in Freedom :.

Mark Brader

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Mar 19, 2015, 1:06:44 AM3/19/15

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Hongyi Zhao:

> What's the meaning of this sentence:
> Time to crawl back under my stone.

If you lift a large stone from the ground, under it you often see
creatures such as worms and beetles that people usually find to be
ugly, inferior forms of life. The sentence is saying "I am one of
those ugly, inferior creatures and now it is time for me to leave
here and go back where I came from."

So rather than the form you quoted, it's more likely to be used in
the second person ("under your stone") as an insult.
--
Mark Brader "Relax -- I know the procedures backwards."
Toronto "Yeah, well, that's a quick way to get killed."
m...@vex.net -- Chris Boucher, STAR COPS

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Dr Nick

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Mar 19, 2015, 3:19:47 AM3/19/15

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m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) writes:

> Hongyi Zhao:
>> What's the meaning of this sentence:
>> Time to crawl back under my stone.
>
> If you lift a large stone from the ground, under it you often see
> creatures such as worms and beetles that people usually find to be
> ugly, inferior forms of life. The sentence is saying "I am one of
> those ugly, inferior creatures and now it is time for me to leave
> here and go back where I came from."
>
> So rather than the form you quoted, it's more likely to be used in
> the second person ("under your stone") as an insult.

Or it could be used sarcastically by someone who feels they've unfairly
not been welcomed.

To know which we'd need a bit more context than a bare sentence.

Bertel Lund Hansen

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Mar 19, 2015, 5:02:14 AM3/19/15

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Mark Brader skrev:

> So rather than the form you quoted, it's more likely to be used in
> the second person ("under your stone") as an insult.

The situation where I have most often seen it, is someone having
made a blundering mistake and postulated something wrong, when
corrected wil exclaim: Allright, I'll just crawl back under my
stone.

In Danish we can also bury ourselves in such a situation.

--
Bertel, Kolt, Denmark

Tony Cooper

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Mar 19, 2015, 9:29:52 AM3/19/15

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On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 00:06:42 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:

>Hongyi Zhao:
>> What's the meaning of this sentence:
>> Time to crawl back under my stone.
>
>If you lift a large stone from the ground, under it you often see
>creatures such as worms and beetles that people usually find to be
>ugly, inferior forms of life. The sentence is saying "I am one of
>those ugly, inferior creatures and now it is time for me to leave
>here and go back where I came from."
>
>So rather than the form you quoted, it's more likely to be used in
>the second person ("under your stone") as an insult.

In the US, it's likely that "rock", not "stone", would be used.

"What rock did you crawl out from under?"
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

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Mar 19, 2015, 9:38:16 AM3/19/15

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A phrase such as "I'll go/get back in my box" is sometimes used by
someone who has joined in a conversation, made a possibly controversial
point, and then decided to withdraw.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

Oliver Cromm

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Mar 19, 2015, 1:05:48 PM3/19/15

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* Tony Cooper:

I would have confused that with "you must have been living under a
rock [the last XX years]", mostly used for someone who doesn't
know about the latest fads in society. But from the answers in
this thread, they seem to be unrelated.

--
Humans write software and while a piece of software might be
bug free humans are not. - Robert Klemme