nowt so queer as folk
- idiom
- Archaic
:
no hay nada tan extraño como la gente
- You never know what they'll do next; there's nowt so queer as folk!
Examples
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Every time I think I've seen it all, something new happens—nowt so queer as folk.
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She shook her head at their behavior; well, nowt so queer as folk, she thought.
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After everything I've seen in this job, I really believe there's nowt so queer as folk.
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In my experience, nowt so queer as folk can be quite true.
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After everything I've seen in this job, I really believe there's nowt so queer as folk.
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You never know what they'll do next; there's nowt so queer as folk!
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Every time I think I've seen it all, something new happens—nowt so queer as folk.
Synonyms
People often do strange or surprising things
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally says 'nothing so strange as people' and its meaning can be directly composed from 'nowt' (nothing) + 'so queer' (very odd) + 'as folk' (as people). A B1 learner who knows these words and the comparative pattern will therefore be able to infer that it expresses that people are often strange or unpredictable, despite the regional/dialectal form 'nowt'.
Etymology
Nowt so queer as folk comes from an old local way of speaking: nowt means 'nothing', queer means 'strange', and folk means 'people', so the phrase literally says that nothing is as strange as people. People used the phrase after seeing odd behavior in a village or town, and that's why today it means people can be very strange or hard to predict.