phrases, sayings, idioms and expressions at

Get over it...

Posted by Smokey Stover on July 12, 2008 at 17:07

In Reply to: Get over it... posted by R. Berg on July 12, 2008 at 16:18:

: : I want concrete answers on definitions to some very commonly used phrases, Get Over It, Put It Behind You, Let It Go, Put It In The Past, to me these phrases ALL mean the same thing, I would like an answer if you can help me out. Thanks!

: "Get over it" doesn't necessarily refer to a grievance about something that's no longer happening. The other three do. ~rb

To expand slightly on ESC's observation, two of them, namely, Put it in the past, and Put it behind you, mean the same and are what one friend would say to another after an unpleasant experience.

The friend would say "Let it go" to a friend whose mood seemed to pressage intemperate action. "Don't try to get even, don't push back, you'll only hurt yourself" is similar advice.

"Get over it" is not necessarily said to you by a friend--more likely a non-friend. As ESC has indicated, what you're being asked to "get over" is not something that happened to you, but rather your own ego, your own self-involvement, seen as a diesase or incapacitating attack which you need to get over or recover from. The remark could be precipitated by a petulant response to a bruised ego, a source of envy or jealousy, or any other event that might cause an egocentric person to go into a snit (or perhaps "have a cow"). It could equally be caused by someone's egocentrism being conspicuously manifested in self-laudatory remarks or other signs of overweening conceit.

How concrete did you want it? Examples? They are all around us, abundant if we keep our ears and eyes open for them. I hesitate to make them up, however, because the situations that might evoke these phrases can differ considerably.

© 1997 – 2024 Phrases.org.uk. All rights reserved.