Perhaps we have discussed this here before, but I had said something on a FB post about a discussion comparing apples to oranges. After we discussed it for awhile (and of course I won. ), someone said, "I have always wondered about the phrase apples to oranges. After all, they are both fruit." She has a point. So - I looked it up and found this.

quote:

It is said that the idiom "apples to oranges" first known as "apples to oysters" in John Ray's proverb collection of 1670. The original expression referred to oysters on behalf of oranges as something which can never be compared with the apples. Source: theidioms.com

Now - apples to oysters makes a lot more sense!

Makes me want a new comparison

Apples and deep sea divers
Apples and Pythagorus’ Theorem
Apples and a bucket of weasel vomit
Apples and a torn T-shirt from a 1978 Alice Cooper concert

Getting a bit surreal now

quote:

a bucket of weasel vomit

That reminded me of a very early B.C. comic strip (Before Johnny Hart became a right-wing nut case) wherein one of the cave men was fishing and doing quite well. Another one asked him what he was using for bait. He replied, "Buzzard puke." Hart was very funny before he found Geeeeezusssss.

And that in turn reminds me of a joke from Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. ( I may get it slightly wrong which I have now looked up)

"This riddle was the only ray of sunshine in the otherwise rotten life of the Poghrils. One Poghril would say to another: "Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena-offal?" Whereupon another Poghril would reply: "I don't know. Why is life like hanging upside down with your head in a bucket of hyena-offal?" To which the first Poghril would say: "I don't know either. Wretched, isn't it."