Dumbass Sayings: “Ballpark Guess”

When you come back from gambling at the dog track and your wife asks you how much money you lost, she says “Give me a ballpark guess. Just a ballpark figure!” What the hell is that supposed to mean? Who the hell comes up with these phrases? A ballpark guess? When you say a “Ballpark guess” that sounds more like you want me to guess what kinds of meat comprise a Ball Park hot dog! That’s a real “Ball Park guess.” But okay let’s just pretend like you’re talking about guessing a number. Why does a ballpark come into this conversation? People might say “Oh that number is out of the ballpark. That’s too much!” Why are we guessing numbers inside of a baseball stadium? So the number I’m guessing is like a baseball I’m hitting? If it’s too much it’s “out of the ballpark”? Well that would be home run. Home runs are good the last time I checked so how would that metaphor make any sense? Usually if you overestimate on a ballpark figure that’s a bad thing because it could lead to incorrect information when dealing with things like budgets. If you’re in a ballpark you want to hit home runs. You want to hit the ball out of the ballpark. This is totally incongruous to the so called meaning of this phrase. Does anyone stop to think about this kind of stuff? What sense does it all make? NONE. That’s why no one asks these questions because we begin to realize that the words we’re saying actually don’t mean anything and we’re all morons talking gibberish.

Lots of guessing going on here.