Fat and slim are opposites. Make it make sense.
fat chance is said sarcastically
Full sayings:
- slim chance
- fat chance in hell
The “in hell” gets dropped from fat chance making the colloquialism confusing.
This is similar to the “blood is thicker than water” shortening of “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”, people who have always heard the first one often use it as an argument for " family sticks together "; when the saying really means the bonds we form of our own choosing are stronger than any presumed by family.
Because fat chance is said sarcastically
Fat Chance is pretty much always sarcastic. However most other common sarcastic phrases are also used sincerely, so it’s actually kind of unique. You could say Phat Chance though which would probably be sincere.
Fat and slim are both as far from the middle of the Gaussian;
Fat chance is ironic, slim chance is not. it’s just that nobody uses fat chance in a non sarcastic manner.
Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
Literally means both literally and not literally.
A fat chance means the odds are so wide it would be impossible. Like, you have so many slim chances at once on different factors for it to remotely work.
A slim chance means the odds are tight but there is an actual chance on a single factor.
One slim chance is better than 40 slim chances focused on a single goal, so fat chance.
When I use slim chance, I actually will try it if it isn’t going to work and it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Fat chance means you shouldn’t bother to try it. The stars would have to perfectly align.
“Are you up for it?” and “Are you down for it?” both mean the same thing too
Gotta get up to get down
Things can burn up and down at the same time.
Fat chance is sarcastic, slim chance is direct
Yeah, no.
…what? No, sorry, I was offering another example, not replying to your salient point. ;-)
That ones slightly different though, because that “yeah” means “OK” or “uh”, not “yes” in this context. Its just a way to give your brain extra time to think of a response.
pedantic, yes, but I enjoy that
The phrase “fat chance” was likely originally used sarcastically. A quick search doesn’t show any consensus, though.
I mean it still is used sarcastically, even if the user might not be aware of it.
Sort of–but given that “fat chance” really only has one meaning today, I wouldn’t call it sarcasm really. For sarcasm, I think it would have to be able to be interpreted two different ways.
Not a native speaker, but I always interpreted fat chance to have an ironic undertone. So… literally it’d mean the opposite, but it’s never used literally.
I read it this way too. It’s like how your biggest friend might be nicknamed Tiny
I don’t know that you can pin down the origin, but a quick search suggests it was early 20th century American English. That makes sense to me, it sounds like the sort of slang I’d hear in an old gangster movie
If you updated the slang for modern times I don’t know if it would have the same impact. If somebody told me I had a dummy thick chance, I’d think my odds are pretty good
According to this stackexchange:
fat chance is like a cynical no chance:
You think you can win the lottery? Fat Chance.
slim chance is when there is a small possibility. It does not infer any hidden meaning.
Even though I did not study, there is a slim chance that I will pass the test.
Plus language evolves organically and isn’t always perfectly logical and consistent.
Because English is three languages in a trench coat pretending to be one language.
Not the origin of this. We can’t just say that to everything related to English.
Of course you can say that. It’d be wrong, but you absolutely could say it. ;-)
because the persons who came up with those phrases were Biggie Smalls and FatBoy Slim
🎵Biggie Smalls is celibate in hell, celibate in hell, celibate in hell 🎵
