POLL for faceplant (euc) literally or figuratively?

[John Eucist]

Poll is set to not show voter names to the public.

[John Eucist]

Well the votes are coming in and, so far, all eight votes (four for each question) are "No".  I'm beginning to feel like I've asked a very silly question with an obvious answer.  However, this is the reason why I asked.  I googled "define faceplant" and these were the top results:

face-plant
verb1.
(intransitive) to fall onto one's face, esp when skiing or snowboarding
Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/face-plant

face plant
Involving sports such as skateboarding, or bike riding, or any other sport for that matter, and you fall, and land directly on your face.
Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=face plant

[Rehab1]

Sorry for the late vote! No, not a silly question at all! I am one that takes the term 'faceplant' literally. You could easily have a head, shoulder or chest plant by just falling forward missing the face.

 I did Google headplant to see if there was a term in the dictionary but only found a picture. (I know...save your breath....that was stupid!)

 

[Smoother]

No, John. It's a good question. People like to make up colourful words and expressions to convey ordinary, or, in this case, painful events. It makes conversation more, ummm?, colourful. I can't speak for other languages, but I'm sure they do it to.

i have actually face planted (literally) several times, starting at the age of about 8. Speed, or the inability to bring ones hands forward, are the keys to a good (bad) face plant.  Its not fun, and often accompanied by a scorpion, if you get some good speed or a grippy surface or both.

theres supposed to be a picture here, but it didn't stick. Just google scorpion fall.

Put simply, a scorpion is when you face-plant into the ground hard enough that your feet come up behind your head, in the shape of a scorpion.  If you really go in hard, your feet hit the back of your head ???

[Smoother]

John you might also like:

ass over tit. (US) 

arse over tit. (UK)

(polite) arse over tea kettle (tea kettle replaces the "T" sound in tit. Not sure how arse managed to stay.)

ass- backwards or its ass-backwards cousin, bass- ackwards 

Eat dust

adopt a tree

insufficient flapping

swan dive

 

dying in an accident or generally ⚰

bit the dust 

Bought the farm

dirt nap

pushing up daisies 

kicked the bucket

popped his clogs 

met his maker

 

 

[Cerbera]

3 minutes ago, Smoother said:

insufficient flapping

Well that one wins for me

[Kroy]

I'm usually a very literal person, I always assume a welcome of, "Hi, how are you?" means hi, how are you feeling today. Not just a noise as you greet someone.
Which is why I don't ask people how they are doing - 'cos I don't give a flying fvck!

But here, I always take a faceplant as less literal & more just a good exaggerated description of falling forwards, reasonably hard. 

[Cloud]

Faceplant literally means to fall on one's face but as applied to the falls off of the wheel, ive adopted its use as an exaggerated expresssion meaning " fall forward off the euc" because i saw that this is how it is used by the unicycle community. The reason this term is so conveniently and frequently used to mean "rapidly fall forward" is because of the forward incline of the body while riding and the obvious fall direction and trajectory once the wheel gives out. In fact one literally accomplishes the almost compkete faceplant, except in most cases the face stops a bit short of hitting the pavement.

[Rehab1]

2 minutes ago, Cloud said:

Faceplant literally means to fall on one's face but as applied to the falls off of the wheel, ive adopted its use as an exaggerated expresssion meaning " fall forward off the euc" because i saw that this is how it is used by the unicycle community. The reason this term is so conveniently and frequently used to mean "rapidly fall forward" is because of the forward incline of the body while riding and the obvious fall direction and trajectory once the wheel gives out. In fact one literally accomplishes the almost compkete faceplant, except in most cases the face stops a bit short of hitting the pavement.

Another great explanation!  @John Eucist Can I change my vote? I hate being in the 9% category!

[Chriull]

I have learned this expression here on the forum and i understand its word by word translation. But since i fortunately never experienced any situation nearly like this i'd throw the hypothesis into this round, that every 'violently falling forward on the floor' includes automaticly a hitting the head on the floor for "normal people", except chuck norris et al of course. If one has good luck one can choose if one get the floor contact with the nose or at a side of the head...

if one just falls forward and the face/side of the head does not hit the ground imho it was no faceplant - just some overlean where one landed on the knees and hands (i know - thats the worst way to stop a fall forward but the way all the 'normal' people react)

so while writing this i recognized that i have choosen the wrong vote. I should have taken 1 instead of 2. but imho the questioning is unclear (for my understanding) - for my understanding a violent fall forward cannot be stopped without the face/side of the head hitting the floor. If one well or overtrained person like chuck norris manages to stop such a fall with his chest without his face hitting the ground i'd still call it a faceplant...,

edit: so after rereading my post i'd vote for 1.5 ?

[Rehab1]

3 minutes ago, Chriull said:

so while writing this i recognized that i have choosen the wrong vote. I should have taken 1 instead of 2

But #2 is winning!  I'm in the #1 looser crowd!

[John Eucist]

2 hours ago, Rehab1 said:

Another great explanation!  @John Eucist Can I change my vote? I hate being in the 9% category!

No no no because that would make my making the poll look more stupid!    Besides, your vote makes up for @Chriull's "1.5".    Lastly, if you didn't self-admit nobody would have known it was you (except for mods if they really wanted to check).  

[Smoother]

People! It's not a VOTE.  it's a POLL.  an opinion poll. John asked us what we mean "literally" when saying face plant, and what we assume "literally" when we hear someone else saying it.  What ever you "selected"  ( notice I didn't say voted) should have represented your true answer to the question.  There is no right or wrong. Chill!

but all the results together, shed light on how we use the phrase, and assume others are using it.  At least now we know that mostly, people are just using FP generically as a hard forward fall. So you minority users don't have to imagine us majority users as having cuts and scrapes all over our faces every time we use FP.  Jeezz! If I actually hit my face every time I used FP, I'd look like a zombie from The Walking Dead. ?? and not the ruggedly handsome mature figure you see before you ( use your imagination)

 

[The Fat Unicyclist]

Faceplants look like this... esp. @1:15

Every time I watch this, I laugh harder! 

[John Eucist]

2 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Faceplants look like this... esp. @1:15

Every time I watch this, I laugh harder! 

I dunno.  I don't think this is funny.  Theft or not, people could die from this prank.

PS.  At 1:25 it looks like the cameraman was about to be kicked the shit out of.

[The Fat Unicyclist]

3 minutes ago, John Eucist said:

I dunno.  I don't think this is funny.  Theft or not, people could die from this prank.

PS.  At 1:25 it looks like the cameraman was about to be kicked the shit out of.

I understand your point - but why should anyone feel entitled to just take without repercussions? Perhaps next time these people would think twice (or check for ropes).

As for the beating... The fact that the big guy even stood up (after basically ripping he handlebars off with his junk) is impressive. But he would still probably want to crawl away to lick his wounds - if he is that flexible.  

[The Fat Unicyclist]

2 hours ago, John Eucist said:

I dunno.  I don't think this is funny.  Theft or not, people could die from this prank.

PS.  At 1:25 it looks like the cameraman was about to be kicked the shit out of.

So I've been contemplating this some more, and I have a question... 

In the US of A, would these people be able to sue for any injury caused? 

[steve454]

All of those "thieves" had to be in on it, how could they not see the rope?  And they all looked prepared for the fall, even so it is a dumb bit.

[Mono]

7 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Faceplants look like this... esp. @1:15

Every time I watch this, I laugh harder! 

Which lets me wonder, what is worse: stealing someones bicycle or braking someones collarbone?

[Mono]

5 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

I understand your point - but why should anyone feel entitled to just take without repercussions?

Why should anyone feel entitled to injure and potentially kill someone who they think feels entitled to steal bicycles?

Stealing a bicycle is commonly an act of desperation or a harmless prank by adolescents, whereas endangering someones life for taking an unlocked(!) bike for the sake of making a cool video is IMHO just plain evil, though admittedly evil on a small scale.

[Keith]

Couple of months ago I decided I was never going to use my bike again; my EUC is so much more convenient, I got it secondhand more than 40 years ago and it has sat in the garden shed for the last 5 rusting and covered in dust. It's a BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) so would have been valuable if it was a motorbike. I started to dismantle it to take it in the car to the local recycling (!) centre when I got a better idea. 

I pumped up the tires, rode it to my local quiet suburban railway station and put in the the bike rack - which has CCTV - unlocked at 10a.m. It went in less  than an hour in broad daylight!

[The Fat Unicyclist]

29 minutes ago, Mono said:

Why should anyone feel entitled to injure and potentially kill someone who they think feels entitled to steal bicycles?

Stealing a bicycle is commonly an act of desperation or a harmless prank by adolescents, whereas endangering someones life for taking an unlocked(!) bike for the sake of making a cool video is IMHO just plain evil, though admittedly evil on a small scale.

I think i agree with you, but is there a difference though between injuring someone and letting them inure themselves? 

I travel a lot and rent a lot of cars - and it's my responsibility to ensure it is safe / legal before I drive away. The fact that someone stealing a bike chooses not to do similar is their choice. 

Think also of the victims of a bike theft - it can potentially have as much of an impact on their lives or even more...

[Mono]

1 hour ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

I think i agree with you, but is there a difference though between injuring someone and letting them inure themselves? 

Not really. Under this notion, if someone drank deadly poisoned tea without knowing, you would conclude they killed themselves. If this would make a decisive difference, poisoning someone could never be murder.

Of course there would be a huge difference if the victims had given consent to be pranked and possibly injure themselves (without knowing the precise prank of course), in which case I wouldn't have any ethical problem with it.

[Mono]

2 hours ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

and it's my responsibility to ensure it is safe / legal before I drive away

and therefore you wouldn't have any complaint if someone had manipulated the brakes of the car to have fun watching you crashing?

[Mono]

6 hours ago, steve454 said:

And they all looked prepared for the fall, even so it is a dumb bit.

I was also wondering whether the prank is fake, but at least some of the falls do not look at all staged to me.