old man yelling at clouds
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: old men yelling at clouds
Senses: examples: text: They don’t seem to understand that they look like fools, raging against the dying of the light with all of the effectiveness of an old man yelling at clouds. Again, that whole lack-of-self-awareness thing.
ref: 2013 October 3, Mike Argento, “House GOP must keep the promise of Obamacare”, in Public Opinion, 145th year, number 74, Chambersburg, Pa., page 9A:
text: Sure, Fraser sounds like an old man yelling at clouds, or shooing some kids off his lawn, but there’s truth in that rant.
ref: 2017, Mark Lazerus, “Epilogue”, in If These Walls Could Talk: Chicago Blackhawks: Stories from the Chicago Blackhawks’ Ice, Locker Room, and Press Box, Chicago, Ill.: Triumph Books LLC, →ISBN:
text: Much of it was nonsense, old men yelling at clouds and talking about how back in their day people had common decency, as if football hasn’t always attracted an element of egomaniacs and testosterone-fueled rage monsters who only started committing crimes in the late 1990s.
ref: 2018, Jerry Thornton, “The Patriot Way”, in Five Rings: The Super Bowl History of the New England Patriots (So Far), Lebanon, N.H.: ForeEdge, University Press of New England, →ISBN, section “Three Rings”, page 99:
text: If he never managed to deal with his issues, though, I’d imagine he’s either now battling it out with wife No. 8 or 9 or 10, or else he’s given up on marriage altogether and gotten himself a half-dozen cats and become a lonely, bitter old man yelling at clouds.
ref: 2018 May 13, Paul Prather, “It’s not easy, but to grow, to deal with problems, you have to see yourself as you are”, in Lexington Herald-Leader, volume 36, number 131, pages 1D and 4D:
text: Are fundamentals disappearing from Major League Baseball? / I see a lot of old men yelling at clouds. Who cares about fundamentals? I just want to see Bryce Harper strike out 170 times, bat .230 and hit 40 home runs.
ref: 2018 August 12, Henry Charpentier, “Five on five: Five Billings Gazette sports staffers offer their opinions on five sports topics”, in Billings Gazette, volume 133, number 101, page C2:
text: Not to sound like an old man yelling at clouds, but back in my day, when you bought a game that was it. You owned it and all of its associated content.
ref: 2019, Brian Tuohy, The Fix Is Still In: More Corruption and Conspiracies the Pro Sports Leagues Don’t Want You To Know About, Port Townsend, Wash.: Feral House, →ISBN:
text: Aaron Rodgers needed to be convinced. At age 36, he may not be the football version of the crotchety-old-man-yelling-at-clouds meme just yet, but even Rodgers will admit that he was more than a little set in his ways.
ref: 2020 October 18, Jason Wilde, “Tweak to pre-snap habits poetry in motion”, in Sunday State Journal, 181st year, number 322, page C1:
text: “To get people to care about this is like old man yelling at clouds. It just doesn’t resonate,” [Kay] Hanley said. “It’s very dense and complex and boring. But I do think fans are the key to this. Once they start leaving Spotify for other services, that is what is going to make all the difference.”
ref: 2022 February 5, Travis M. Andrews, “X marks the Spotify”, in Regina Leader-Post, page B8:
text: Would I prefer the Canadiens hadn’t gone the way of the other 31 NHL teams in allowing advertising on uniforms? Absolutely. / Will I shake my fist at the clouds (summoning yet more Old Man Yelling at Clouds GIFs from slack-jawed numb-nuzzles)? No, I will not.
ref: 2022 September 26, Jack Todd, “You can bet Habs’ jersey ad isn’t the worst cash grab”, in Montreal Gazette, page NP9, column 1:
text: This may, in part, have transformed him into something resembling an old man yelling at clouds.
ref: 2023, Matt Colquhoun, Narcissus in Bloom: An Alternative History of the Selfie, London: Repeater Books, →ISBN:
text: Old Men Yelling at Clouds / “You see the world through rose-coloured glasses.” / I have heard this all my life and have even come to take it as a compliment. My family says it, friends say it, colleagues agree and social media is quick to ridicule. When I hit my seventies, I became acutely aware that a car accident or falling off a ladder or merely wandering off and getting lost in a park would see me described in the local press as an “elderly gentleman.” I began to wonder at what point, exactly, do aging males become the cartoon character Abe, grandpa in The Simpsons, raising a fist to the sky over that perfect headline: “Old Man Yells at Cloud.”
ref: 2023, Roy MacGregor, Paper Trails: From the Backwoods to the Front Page, a Life in Stories, Toronto, Ont.: Random House Canada, →ISBN, page 214:
text: “Sure, if you listen to the old school guys who also think we’ve all gone soft because their generation didn’t need so much safety gear.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Ignore the old men yelling at clouds.”
ref: 2023, L.A. Witt, Own Goal: M/M Contemporary Hockey Romance, →ISBN:
text: This may seem reminiscent of an old man yelling at clouds, but Kentucky’s pigskin history is built upon its wins and losses. Fans and their pent-up enthusiasm accompanying every preseason must also suffer from short term memory loss.
ref: 2023 August 27, Jim Jackson, “There’s no better time for UK football than before season begins”, in Lexington Herald-Leader, volume 41, number 237, page 2C, column 4:
glosses: Alternative form of old man yells at cloud.