The expression "dead before they hit the ground"

[HelloWorl]

Wasn't there a chicken with it's head cut off that managed to live for a couple of years before it died?

Which brings up the expression: "Running around like a chicken with it's head cut off."

Are you seriously that retarded?

 

[MoPHo]

Are you seriously that retarded?

I smell some pwnage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

The good news is that your posts are low and your join date is new so you can just get rid of the account and get a new one to wash away the shame.

 

[IronWing]

Zombies - Dead before they hit the ground ... running.

 

[RoloMather]

I smell some pwnage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

The good news is that your posts are low and your join date is new so you can just get rid of the account and get a new one to wash away the shame.

Hahah. Well technically it wasn't a full beheading. Still, pretty cool.

This is similar to brain dead patients who are kept on life-support.

 

[alrocky]

MoPHo, I'd like to think he was wondering out loud, talking about himself.

 

[HelloWorl]

I smell some pwnage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

The good news is that your posts are low and your join date is new so you can just get rid of the account and get a new one to wash away the shame.

Everyone knows about Mike the headless chicken you dolt (although it wasn't completely headless anyway). The term 'running around like a chicken with its head cut off' does NOT come from this historic chicken.

Even buffoons like yourself should know that when you cut off a chicken's head, often times they will move, walk, run around for a short while.

 

[IronWing]

Everyone knows about Mike the headless chicken you dolt (although it wasn't completely headless anyway). The term 'running around like a chicken with its head cut off' does NOT come from this historic chicken.

Even buffoons like yourself should know that when you cut off a chicken's head, often times they will move, walk, run around for a short while.

Which is why you're supposed to throw them against a wall after you chop their heads off.

 

[HelloWorl]

Which is why you're supposed to throw them against a wall after you chop their heads off.

They do that with live baby chicks, but not sure how effective that would be on adults. They have a great deal of wind resistance, making the impact moderately weak.

 

[SunSamurai]

Did you forget to add the /sarcasm tag? Quite a few people have survived jumping from the Golden Gate bridge.

I thought it was obvious after the second sentence.

 

[MoPHo]

Everyone knows about Mike the headless chicken you dolt (although it wasn't completely headless anyway). The term 'running around like a chicken with its head cut off' does NOT come from this historic chicken.

Even buffoons like yourself should know that when you cut off a chicken's head, often times they will move, walk, run around for a short while.

Whoa. Uncalled for. I am not a dolt.

 

[IronWing]

They do that with live baby chicks, but not sure how effective that would be on adults. They have a great deal of wind resistance, making the impact moderately weak.

My mother told me about how when she was growing up, she and her friends would watch one of the old men in her neighborhood slaughtering chickens in his driveway. He'd chop off the head with a hatchet and then slam the bird against the garage door to keep it from running. Even back then (1940s) this was an urban neighborhood so the kids were fascinated.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I smell some pwnage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

The good news is that your posts are low and your join date is new so you can just get rid of the account and get a new one to wash away the shame.

Holy shit, that's cool!

 

[rockyct]

I think Mythbusters needs to test out this saying like that crappy episode where they tested "hit the ground running."

 

[Nik]

The term is used too often. Unless you destroy the brain itself, the body goes through a dying process that takes a while. The brain should be conscious for a couple minutes unless it's such a painful injury that you go into shock and pass out.

 

[Via]

Maybe the original phrase has something to do with paratroopers.

 

[SilverThief]

When you hear the phrase that someone was dead before they hit the ground, do you assume the person was actually dead before falling or that they were so injured that there was nothing anyone could do for them?

I always assumed that the person actually died but a friend of mine says the second meaning of the expression is correct.

The latter....it means the didnt have a chance in hell.

 

[SunSamurai]

The latter....it means the didnt have a chance in hell.

dead before they hit the ground means dead before they hit the ground
didnt have a chance in hell means didnt have a chance in hell

This hard to grasp?

 

[BoomerD]

It's a figure of speech. All it means is that death was so quick that for all practical purposes it was instantaneous.

Agreed. While the body may not be technically dead before it hits the ground, death is on the way...and won't be stopped. (although there certainly are bazillions of cases where the body was clinically dead before the body hit the ground.)

 

[Modelworks]

The phrase comes from WWII. During the war it was common for paratroopers to be hit by flak or bullets before they landed. So they were dead before they hit the ground. They didn't really hit the ground, like a crash, but landed like normal, but they say hit because of another phrase "hit the ground running" , which they taught paratroopers to do also

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

literally the former.
figuratively the latter.

both are correct usage.