See way out of a paper bag in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"etymology_text": "Most likely originating as, He couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag.",
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"text": "My boss is so clueless, he couldn't schedule his own way out of a paper bag.",
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"text": "Junior varsity couldn't play their way out of a paper bag in comparison.",
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"ref": "1923, Asia, volume 23, American Asiatic Association, page 281:",
"text": "The old chap did not look as though he could push his way out of a paper bag.",
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"ref": "1924, Harry Charles Witwer, Love and Learn, G. P. Putnam's sons, page 260:",
"text": "Personally I don’t think this egg could punch his way out of a paper bag. He’s only been workin’ in this trap two days",
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{
"ref": "2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “Introduction – The Seventh Sense”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 8:",
"text": "To be fair, many people who couldn’t punctuate their way out of a paper bag are still interested in the way punctuation can alter the sense of a string of words. It is the basis of all “I’m sorry, I’ll read that again” jokes.",
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{
"ref": "2014, Allie Peter, Saved by the Fireman, page 105:",
"text": "“You'd hate his cooking[,” he said.]\n “Most guys can't cook their way out of a paper bag[,” Charlotte said.]",
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"word": "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery"
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"word": "enough sense to pound sand into a rathole"
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"word": "know one's ass from a hole in the ground"
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"word": "way out of a wet paper bag"
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Download raw JSONL data for way out of a paper bag meaning in English (2.9kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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