Fat and slim are opposites. Make it make sense.
Wait until you find out a grill utensil is called a spatula but a tool to mix baking ingredients is also called a spatula.
Fat chance is ironic, slim chance is not. it’s just that nobody uses fat chance in a non sarcastic manner.
They dont.
because the persons who came up with those phrases were Biggie Smalls and FatBoy Slim
🎵Biggie Smalls is celibate in hell, celibate in hell, celibate in hell 🎵
The phrase “fat chance” was likely originally used sarcastically. A quick search doesn’t show any consensus, though.
I mean it still is used sarcastically, even if the user might not be aware of it.
“Are you up for it?” and “Are you down for it?” both mean the same thing too
Things can burn up and down at the same time.
Gotta get up to get down
Full sayings:
- slim chance
- fat chance in hell
The “in hell” gets dropped from fat chance making the colloquialism confusing.
This is similar to the “blood is thicker than water” shortening of “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”, people who have always heard the first one often use it as an argument for " family sticks together "; when the saying really means the bonds we form of our own choosing are stronger than any presumed by family.
Fat and slim are both as far from the middle of the Gaussian;
A fat chance means the odds are so wide it would be impossible. Like, you have so many slim chances at once on different factors for it to remotely work.
A slim chance means the odds are tight but there is an actual chance on a single factor.
One slim chance is better than 40 slim chances focused on a single goal, so fat chance.
When I use slim chance, I actually will try it if it isn’t going to work and it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Fat chance means you shouldn’t bother to try it. The stars would have to perfectly align.
Fat Chance is pretty much always sarcastic. However most other common sarcastic phrases are also used sincerely, so it’s actually kind of unique. You could say Phat Chance though which would probably be sincere.
This is how I felt when I tried to win an argument about ‘deceptively deep’ and found that usage was subjective and that ‘deceptively shallow’ could be used interchangeably
According to this stackexchange:
fat chance is like a cynical no chance:
You think you can win the lottery? Fat Chance.
slim chance is when there is a small possibility. It does not infer any hidden meaning.
Even though I did not study, there is a slim chance that I will pass the test.
Plus language evolves organically and isn’t always perfectly logical and consistent.
Not a native speaker, but I always interpreted fat chance to have an ironic undertone. So… literally it’d mean the opposite, but it’s never used literally.
I read it this way too. It’s like how your biggest friend might be nicknamed Tiny
I don’t know that you can pin down the origin, but a quick search suggests it was early 20th century American English. That makes sense to me, it sounds like the sort of slang I’d hear in an old gangster movie
If you updated the slang for modern times I don’t know if it would have the same impact. If somebody told me I had a dummy thick chance, I’d think my odds are pretty good
Likewise, “all but impossible” sounds like the probability is anywhere above zero (0, 1]. Counterintuitively, what it really means is that it is actually very close to zero. So maybe something like [0, 0.1]. Should zero be included in this interval?
I could care less about this
So you care a lot?
You could, but apparently don’t.
wooosh?
Who knows really. Take it literally, and they probably care quite a bit. If not, the amount of caring is exactly zero.
Thanks!
Those expressions are stupid anyway. Say high/low probability instead.
You want me to use a 5 syllable word when a 1 syllable word will do? Fat chance!
You can’t buy bread with syllables, no need to save them :)
Never tell me the odds.
Odds
Not sure if against the rules, but you’re a stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerfherder.
