this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Because the idiom is simply not always true, that's why.
Special effects producers take advantage of this as well.
I'm not sure if you read the couching of my statement that there are smoke machines.
Or that, you know, I'm an analytical chemist for smoke.... And there may be smoke without fires (as I eluded to in the original post), but where there is a fire there is absolutely smoke. And I believe I've taken at least a chemistry course to get where I am today... But who says the universe wasn't created last Thursday...
Also there are some idioms that are never true, how are they not worse than an idiom that "isn't always true"? I think your scale on idioms are off as much as your judgement of people's chemistry backgrounds.
Because I was thinking mainly of idioms in this kind of context. Many idioms wouldn't be said in this context. Other idioms that have even more negative potential include but are not limited to...
"Spare the rod, spoil the child."
"One bad apple ruins the whole bunch."
"Fight fire with fire." (why the Hell would someone fight fire with fire)
"Flies are attracted more by honey than vinegar."
"Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are."
The idiom in question is "where there's smoke there's fire" and it alludes to the idea that "much ado" is never about nothing, that commotion is never born in a vacuum. This is neither true literally or figuratively (people do not operate in the same way as smoke and fire, people seem more analogous to snow avalanching down a mountain if we are to update the idiom), but the fact it's not even true literally spells out a glaring problem with even invoking the idiom. The reverse statement, "where there's fire there's smoke", isn't true either.