Faster Than Idioms List, Revisited
Broadly, this is a vast expansion on a post I long regretted not expanding sooner: Master List of Quicker Than/ Faster Than -Jokes from 2014. I asked GPT to generate for me loads of them, and hand-picked a lot of them. A ton of the generated ones made very little sense, and I had to really hone down the style a bunch to get the nuance I was looking for.
One thing I learned when making this list, is, as someone who has trouble expressing feelings vs thinking, that I could perhaps better communicate feelings by relating an idiomatic situation or otherwise analogous situation to help someone understand my predicament. How are you feeling today? It's like on a winter morning and you're late and the car won't start. How did you feel about the video I sent you? It's like when I could finally see the leaves in the trees when I first got glasses.
Pop down to the crude convo graph at the bottom, to find out the style honing I used, but here's the list so far:
| Faster |
|---|
| than a billy on a bobby |
| Slower |
|---|
| than molasses in winter |
And for the process of honing the style, this was our conversation:
| me | gpt (*paraphrased) |
|---|---|
| would you list for upwards of 50 words which could be preceded by “than”, such as faster than, slower than, etc. | x |
| x | Sure, here's…* / need more?* |
| would you invent for me ten idioms for each of those, which follow the pattern of, “slower than molasses downhill in winter” or “quicker than a fox on a sugar rush” but keeping it within child-friendly sensibilities? instead of spitting out a list of 600 items, let's handle them 50 at a time. | x |
| x | Sure, here's 50..* / would you like me to continue?* |
| Continue, but let's not restrict it to playful kid-safe style in the sense of targeted toward children for a kid's book, but just avoid topics which might be offensive to an audience wishing to avoid corruption of a child for hearing it. For example, references to alcoholism or other age-restricted “vice” connected activities; “easier than having no income on tax day” would be child-safe in this sense, despite not being something a child might grasp cognitively. | x |
| x | Understood; here's..* |
| A great many of those are not idiomatic to me; they are moreso just plainly comparative. To me an idiomatic phrase would include a more elaborate situation. “Farther than resources allowed” vs “Farther than the amount of rations a hoarder would allow.” You did well on the earlier kid kind such as “faster than a rabbit hearing a carrot snap” but then detoured into just generalizations or vague limitations. Try to focus on crafting a scenario in which the comparative word is situationally illustrated, such as “tougher than a math test after getting no sleep that night” instead of “sooner than caution advised.” Let's try 5 more sets of 10 to see whether you grasp the style. | x |
| x | Thank you — that clarification helps a lot, and you’re right about the distinction. What you’re asking for are true simile-style idioms: compact little scenes that demonstrate the comparison, not abstractions or managerial phrasing. I’ll do 5 comparatives, 10 idioms each, all built around concrete situations and light narrative logic. No vices, no offensiveness, but cognitively adult is fine. |
| Let's discontinue the list for now, but this most recent style is the kind I am seeking. As a token-saving measure, please write out for me how you would phrase my style prescription for these idioms, in a way that your LLM would understand readily, should I need to evoke examples of the most recent list you offered, so that you need not spend tokens to review your own whole list again each time. Let's assume that in that future instance, I will have already asked you for the “upwards of 50 'than' words”) for which you would apply the style. | x |
| x | Sure; here's (long bullet-point list)*; I can make this smaller for better token-thrift.* |
| Yes, token thriftiness is often on my mind; a non-bulleted version that I can easily paste from plaintext would be ideal. | x |
| x | When generating idioms of the form “comparative than…”, produce true simile-style expressions in which the phrase following “than” depicts a concrete, specific situation or mini-scenario with identifiable actors, objects, or events that demonstrate the comparison through implied cause and effect. Avoid abstract limits, vague generalities, or managerial phrasing (e.g., “than expected,” “than allowed,” “than advised”). Favor everyday, plausible moments—missed signs, tightened jar lids, failing devices, deadlines shifting, ordinary human or animal behavior—so the idiom feels situational and conversational rather than proverbial or poetic. Keep content broadly audience-safe (no vice or explicit material), but allow adult contexts such as work, logistics, fatigue, planning, or responsibility. Each phrase should sound like something a person might naturally coin or repeat, even if newly invented. |
