Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat OT, but I love how this "kitchen sink" idiom has become so warped over the last several years.

As far as I know (native AmE), the original expression was "everything but the kitchen sink", which evokes the idea of taking everything in the kitchen and using it all in a recipe, only stopping short of dismantling the kitchen itself.

Whether through mishearing or laziness, the "everything but the" part has been dropped. I only noticed it in the last few years, but maybe it's been happening for a lot longer than that. So it's now totally the opposite: the only thing in the expression is the kitchen sink, i guess suggesting that there's a bunch of junk in the sink?

But this title is even better. We have abandoned all pretense of caring about the meaning of the expression. In 2021, Chuck Schumer is going to call Mark Zuckerberg in to testify, and he is going to physically hurl a big metal sink at him.

I know that language evolves and stuff, but it's pretty funny to see such a silly corruption of an already-kind-of-silly idiom in a "serious" title.

I think you're confusing it a bit...

One expression still is "everything but the kitchen sink", which means all reasonable effort.

But that means the kitchen sink is now the metaphorical "last thing", i.e. the full extent of our effort, the theoretical maximum.

So to "throw the kitchen sink" at something is to put in all your effort, literally everything you've got. (And there's no need for junk in the sink...)

It's a different expression with a different meaning but derived from the first.

And of course metaphors are very often silly... that's why we love using and abusing them! :)

I've never heard that one before, but it would be pretty clever. I think most people just use it wrong.

What do you mean using it wrong? The article is using it in exactly the way I described. "Throw the kitchen sink at something" is a widely used, valid expression these days. People are using it to mean expending every effort, so people seem to be using it right.

And the wonderful thing about language is that however most people are using it is by definition what it means:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description

Wonderful to academics? Yes, academics study what is, but at any given moment there are prescriptive rules and norms for what should be, Elements of Style if you will:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription

Or even if you won’t:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/50-years-of-stupid-grammar...

Such take downs are often lamenting a lack of rule following in the style guides!

“What’s wrong is that the grammatical advice proffered in Elements is so misplaced and inaccurate that counterexamples often show up in the authors’ own prose on the very same page.”

> at any given moment there are prescriptive rules and norms for what should be

But according to who?

That's an entirely serious question. Because different "authorities" disagree about the rules and norms, and on top of that people disagree on who the "authorities" are or should be.

That's the whole point.

> But according to who?

Whom.

;-)

I owe you drinks sometime.

It has never occurred to me to see that idiom as an analog for effort. It may sound silly, but in multiple lifetimes I've never seen it that way.

Your idea would make more sense if congress had tried everything but the kitchen sink already. But afaik congress has been doing very little to regulate "big tech". Now let's say it's a year later and the 5 draft bills are passed, but congress decides to create another bill to regulate tech, what will the new article say then? Kitchen sink was not enough, another kitchen required? No, I think the expression is just misused in this article.

By the way the original expression was popular during WWII when describing the effort to fight the enemy[1].

[1] https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/96582/what-is-th...

I agree. One does not "throw the kitchen sink". I think the author is conflating it with the "throw the book" idiom.

They combined them. Throwing the kitchen sink means you're literally using everything you have, since you're even going to throw the sink too. Combine this with the "throwing the book at them" idiom, and you arrive at "throwing the kitchen sink".

> Throwing the kitchen sink means you're literally using everything you have

If that is true, the article is still misusing the expression because congress is in no way using everything that they have to regulate big tech.

Funnily enough, in the TV show "Prison Break", the main character's brother's prison nickname is "Kitchen Sink" or "Sink". We're told that he got this nickname because if you get in a fight with him, he will come at you with everything but the kitchen sink!

I think dr Seuss added "even the kitchen sink" at some point.

"Kitchen sink regression" has been around as a term for many years

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