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Glite Dictionary
see the other guy

see the other guy

9.4
A joking way to say the other person was hurt more after a fight
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : ver al otro
  • When people asked about his black eye, he just said, "You should see the other guy."

Examples

  • He returned from the brawl bruised, but with a grin, said, "Just wait till you see the other guy."

  • After her rough soccer match, she joked to her friends, "Yeah, but you should see the other guy."

  • You should see the other guy!

  • After the argument, he just laughed and said, "You should see the other guy!"

  • After her rough soccer match, she joked to her friends, "Yeah, but you should see the other guy."

  • He returned from the brawl bruised, but with a grin, said, "Just wait till you see the other guy."

  • When people asked about his black eye, he just said, "You should see the other guy."

Synonyms

you should see the other guy
vssee the other guy
  • Informal
9.7

Says as a joke to show someone else is more hurt after a fight

is a humorous remark that downplays one's own injuries by comparison

Surface Forms

see the other guy main

Morphology

see + the + other + guy

The phrase literally reads as 'look at the other person', so a learner who knows the constituents might infer an instruction to look at someone else, but the conventional humorous meaning — implying the other person is worse off after a fight — is a pragmatic, culture-specific inference rather than a straightforward compositional meaning. Because the intended boastful/ironic implication is conventionalized and not fully predictable from the parts alone, it is partially but not completely transparent to a B1 learner.

Etymology

See the other guy comes from boxing and street fights: when someone shows a bruise they say see the other guy while pointing to the other person who looks worse. So today people use it jokingly to mean 'the other person is worse off'.