Silly Searches! The Most Misunderstood Phrases of 2024
From phrases to locations, how many of these do you know?
It's hard to imagine a time before Google, isn't it? There's no getting away from the fact that online search engines have made life a whole lot easier. Now, when an important (or not-so-important!) question is bugging us, we don't need to visit the library, phone a friend, or ask an expert to get an answer. Instead, we can quickly pop our question into Google and find the information we seek within seconds.
Whether it's British sayings, confusing place names, or the latest social media slang, the UK search trends on Google reveal what we've all been attempting to find out. So, we thought we'd have a little fun looking at the most misunderstood phrases of 2024.
If you've ever wondered why it takes two to tango, how to pronounce Frome, or what people mean when they say glow-up, then you're not alone!
What is the most commonly misunderstood idiom?
According to keyword research, it seems that we Brits like nothing more than finding out the meaning of popular British idioms, the sayings we all use regularly and take for granted, without really knowing where they came from.
There are so many funny British phrases that it's not surprising they leave many of us perplexed. While some may be easy to fathom - "all bets are off" is a reference to the casino and betting industry that can be used naturally in all manner of scenarios - others are as random as a spin on the roulette wheel!
We took a deep dive into the UK search trends to dig up the everyday British sayings that are most commonly misunderstood, and, as bingo callers often like to say, there was a clear "winner, winner, chicken dinner"!
It turns out, the UK public most regularly wants to know the meaning of that familiar expression of good luck — 'break a leg' — with over 110,000 searches for its meaning over the past year. The phrase has its roots in superstition from the theatrical world. By telling someone about to go on stage to 'break a leg', you were hoping it wouldn't really happen… which sounds pretty complicated.
Curiosity about who killed the cat sent 40,500 Brits to Google to find out exactly what happened to the unfortunate feline. There were over 33,100 searches to find out why anyone would want to bite the bullet, and 27,100 of us struggled to make sense of holding your horses.
It seems that some of the oldest British idioms are still the most baffling.
The most mispronounced places across the UK
It's not just curious idioms littering the English language that are causing us confusion; we're also unsure how to pronounce a host of UK place names. With so many unique place names in the UK, from Fowey to Ardnamurchan, it's not surprising. Throw in the extra complications of regional differences, and it's no wonder place name pronunciation questions regularly appear in the list of weird Google searches.
While places like Edinburgh are famously challenging for Americans to get their heads around, it seems like Brits can sometimes be equally confused.
Topping the list of Google pronunciation requests was the city of Gloucester, with over 8,400 Google searches over the past year. A few thousand behind on 5,400 was the Cheshire village of Cholmondeley, an area popular with sporting high rollers from the Premier League. Next up was Bicester, with 2,400 searches.
Tied with the Oxfordshire town was the longest place name in the UK, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogoch. It's a name that even people from Anglesey, where you'll find it, can sometimes struggle to pronounce, so it's handily shortened back to its original name of Llanfairpwll.
Meanwhile, in London, there is a perennial pronunciation problem, with Marylebone sending 1,900 UK searchers to Google. Also appearing on the list is Belvoir Castle near Grantham, and if you're visiting Shropshire, you've got both Shrewsbury and Leominster to tangle with.
Our UK search trends show that Brits really don't want to get caught out by the locals when visiting a location with a perplexing name. If Brits find it hard to pronounce certain UK place names, it would be interesting to look at US search trends to see how confusing would-be American visitors find them. Are we confused about the same places? That's a whole other research piece!
Can you keep up with social media sayings?
Language is constantly changing at a rate of knots, and keeping tabs on all the new terminology can be difficult. Terms like Covfefe, Choosing the Bear, and Raygun all hit the headlines over the last 12 months. It's hard to comprehend exactly what will go viral, but when it does, it can quickly enter everyday language and urban dictionaries across the globe.
What often starts as Gen Z slang can sometimes be adopted by older generations, which may lead younger people to look for new words that their parents have yet to discover! Do you know your Goblin Mode from your Bigly? What's the Unknown, and is it time to Match your Freak?
Dancing to the top of the viral Google searches for UK slang is Raygun, with a staggering 550,000 searches. Some way behind at 135,000 is Folie a deux, the much-awaited and much-maligned sequel to the film, Joker. Covfefe, immortalised by Donald Trump during a misspelling of a late-night tweet, was searched for 60,500 times.
If all this contemporary slang makes you feel suddenly weary and in need of some comfort, then perhaps you were one of the 22,000 who searched Google for the meaning of Goblin mode.
If you're desperate to get on top of the latest slang phrases, then be careful you don't end up falling out of a coconut tree, which was searched 8100 times.
While new slang can quickly leave you feeling old, we do at least now have Google to help us attempt to keep up!
So there you have it. From ancient British idioms to the latest in street slang, it's a safe bet that we will always be curious about language.
Methodology
We analysed search trend data using Keyword Tool. By looking at the search volume from the last 12 months (October 2023-October2024), we obtained data about the top phrases/words/searches for 2024.