that's saying something
- idiom
- Informal
:
eso es decir algo
- This is a new low for subway service in this city, and that is saying something!
Examples
-
But, John, even if we manage to pull that off, and that's saying something, the real question is, who are we selling this to?
-
After completing the marathon in under three hours, she joked, "For me, that's saying something!"
-
These guys are the best musicians I have ever worked with in my life, and that's saying something.
-
When he praised her cooking, I knew that that's saying something, since he is very critical of food.
-
If she liked the movie, that's saying something, because she rarely enjoys anything.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'this is especially significant' is linked to the constituents because 'say'/'saying' can carry the sense 'to indicate' and 'something' is indefinite, so a learner could partly infer that the remark indicates more than it literally states. However, the emphatic, evaluative pragmatic force and the fixed phrasing ('that's saying something' ≈ 'that says a lot') are not fully predictable from the literal words alone and typically require prior exposure.
Etymology
That's saying something comes from the simple idea that when someone actually says a surprising or strong thing, their words show the fact is serious or unusual. So people use that's saying something to mean 'especially important or impressive'.
