Steam letting.

[Dirtdigger]

What do you let off steam about today????


My answer is in my signature line.

 

[tree]

I am not getting the idea.
Was the idiom "let off steam" here meant to indicate anger or happiness?
I associate letting off steam with excitement, usually of a negative sort.
I looked up the definition.

I also watched the remote control excavator video.
I didn't see anything in the signature line that indicated anger, so this thread was meant to be a display of
what things people felt a need to effusively express themselves about? (a sort of "OH BOY/YAY thread?)

Let off (some) steam
and blow off (some) steam
1. Lit. [for something] to release steam. The locomotive let off some steam after it came to a halt. With a great hiss, it let off steam and frightened the children.
2. Fig. to work or play off excess energy. Those boys need to get out and let off some steam. Go out and let off steam!
3. Fig. to release one's pent-up emotions, such as anger, usually verbally. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I guess I needed to let off some steam. She's not that mad. She's just letting off steam.

 

[Vinca]

I was imagining this was the place to rent steam from.

 

[tree]

I was imagining this was the place to rent steam from.

Tree....being very slow on the uptake...
ohhh you mean like: Welcome to Steam - Steam Monster Summer Sale That place?

Or what?

 

[zurb]

'Letting off steam' is like if the boiler on a steam train is over pressurized, you need to let off steam to release pressure. As a metaphor it generally relates to anger - those things that 'make your blood boil'. Letting off steam is a metaphor for having a rant. We have another thread for rants, which is probably why this one didn't take off.

 

[tree]

'Letting off steam' is like if the boiler on a steam train is over pressurized, you need to let off steam to release pressure. As a metaphor it generally relates to anger - those things that 'make your blood boil'. Letting off steam is a metaphor for having a rant. We have another thread for rants, which is probably why this one didn't take off.

I looked it up and posted various meanings in #2.
One of the meanings was to work/play off excess energy, without any negative conotations.

I thought OP might have had the creative idea of having an ENTHUSIASTIC thread,
letting off steam about stuff people were happy/excited about.
OP was excited about her remote control thing she made.

 

[Vinca]

Tree....being very slow on the uptake...
ohhh you mean like: Welcome to Steam - Steam Monster Summer Sale That place?

Or what?

I was imagining this was the place to rent steam from.

I had the idea of houses being 'to let' already in my mind prior to reading the title, and then the term 'blood letting' also came to mind whilst reading the title. Next, my imagination took over, and I pictured mini-clouds of steam being captured in party-ballon-sized translucent-containers, that would float in the air and have a piece of string attatched to them just like a helium ballon, and would then be 'let out' to people. I was amused by my train of thought that resulted from the metaphor being expressed in a way that I wasn't familiar with ie 'steam letting' rather than 'letting off steam'.

I think I may have been trying to use 'dry' humour in my post. I think dry humour is when a statement is made in a dead-pan manner and it is obviously inaccurate - so it's obvious that this isn't the place to 'let steam' from because there's no such thing as 'renting out steam'.

Perhaps my post was too obscure, especially as for the humour to be sucessful, the reader would also have to have know about my random imagining of 'steam to let/rent ballons'.

Sometimes when I use words to try and express concepts, it's as though I have no sense of what they will actually communicate to the reader, I'm experiencing this at the mo. I'm hoping that what I have written above conveys what I want it to and isn't just inane ramblings.

 

[tree]

The stream of conscious imagery was great Vinca.
OP's "steam letting" was obscure to me. That's why I looked it up.

I thought she was probably making a joke/pun:
steam letting/being enthusiastic about the remote control excavator
she had made (although...it wasn't steam powered, so that was
just my lack of familiarity with mechanical terms.)

Maybe there just aren't any people doing stuff they want to
be ENTHUSIASTIC about...