Six Idiotic Idioms— And What's Wrong With Them

Six Idiotic Idioms— And What’s Wrong With Them

- Brandon Specktor

‘No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk’

THE FLAW: Crying helps people recover from disappointment. True, it’s dangerous to dwell on the past, but holding back those spiltmilk tears could hurt even more. A survey of more than 5,000 weepers in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology suggests that a good cry can provide resolution after pain— respondents who tried to suppress their sobs only felt worse. Or, to put it in more lactose-tolerant terms, “Sometimes we should cry over spilt milk,” writes Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, a philosophy professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. “Otherwise, how will we learn to value milk, and how will we avoid spilling it again?”

‘Pure As the Driven Snow’