Running around like a cat with its head cut off.

Guest post: Thanks Ray

What I think was intended:

like a chicken with its head cut off (American)

if you do something like a headless chicken, you do it very quickly and without thinking carefully about what you are doing (usually in continuous tenses) I've got so much work to do - I've been running around like a headless chickenall week. He was racing around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to do the work of two people.

I want to earn it square and fair

fair and square

phrase of fair

1. 1. 

   honestly and straightforwardly.

   "we won the match fair and square"

   synonyms:

   honestly, fairly, without cheating, without foul play, by the book

We'll deal with that bridge when we cross it.

Always a dollar short and a dime late...

If something is a day late and a dollar short, it is too little, too late.

You're talking to the choir...

What I think she meant was:

Preaching to the choir

Meaning

To commend an opinion to those who already accept it.

Origin

'Preaching to the choir' (also sometimes spelled quire) is of US origin. It clearly refers to the pointlessness of a preacher attempting to convert those who, by their presence in church, have already demonstrated their faith. The first reference we can find is from 1973. Many other references date from soon after that, which points to the phrase being coined in that year; for example, this from The Lima News, Ohio, January 1973:

"He said he felt like the minister who was preaching to the choir. That is, to the people who always come to church, but not the ones who need it most."

The phrase may not be old but it does express the same idea as an earlier phrase - 'preaching to the converted', and is almost certainly a follow-on from that. This dates back around a century further and is first cited in the works of John Stuart Mill. He used the phrase in, An Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, 1867:

"Dr. M'Cosh is preaching not only to a person already converted, but to an actual missionary of the same doctrine."

The idea has also been expressed in another phrase that refers to an unnecessary act, that is, 'kicking at an open door'. 

George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, in The Peace of Augustans, 1916, used both terms in one sentence:

"One may be said to be preaching to the converted and kicking at open doors in praising the four great novelists of the eighteenth century."

Source: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/preaching-to-the-choir.html

He says he sees the tunnel at the end of the light...

I think she meant:

The light at the end of the tunnel; meaning, the end is in sight.

"You're on it like sh*t on rice"

What I think she meant...

Like white on rice.

right on top of something; as close assomething can get

Spoonerism

ism

ˈspo͞onəˌrizəm/

noun

1. a verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, often to humorous effect, as in the sentence you have hissed the mystery lectures, accidentally spoken instead of the intended sentence you have missed the history lectures.

   
   

   

Jargon Aphasia

Jargon aphasia is a strange syndrome which cause people to suddenly say nonsense words while otherwise speaking normally. Often they won't even know that they did it. And scientists are not entirely sure what that means.

Jargon aphasia arises from brain damage, either from traumatic injury or some kind of degenerative syndrome. It involves substituting in words that don't make sense while conducting a normal conversation — words that may start with the same sound, like substituting "detective" for "debt," or sometimes words that are related to each other, like substituting "bird," for "egg." Occasionally it involves substituting total nonsense words for regular words. This much most scientists all agree on.

It's everything else that causes confusion. Jargon aphasia can range from occasional word substitution in otherwise intelligible sentences to total nonsense sentences. People with the condition can be completely aware of their inability to communicate, or have no idea that they're saying words that don't make sense. As well as disagreeing about the degree of the aphasia, scientists aren't in agreement about what it means. Some conclude that jargon aphasia is a bad sign, a sign of the brain giving up on delivering the right word. Others think that it's the brain trying to get back in the game, adapting to having "lost" a word by providing substitute words or sounds that may help the person communicate. 

Only a few experiments have been done examining jargon aphasia, but one of them seems to conclude that it's better to consider the condition a spectrum than a closely-defined phenomenon. A group of aphasics were asked to identify objects on cards, and repeat certain words. Unsurprisingly, the more words people missed, or replaced with nonsense words, the less they were able to realize that they were missing words. So people who used nonsense speech were unable to recognize that they were using nonsense speech. The people who only replaced a few words were able to understand what they were doing. That looks like two different conditions. But when the patients repeated the experiment, this time with some masking noise to distract them and cover up their words, those who previously were able to come up with correct answers, and recognize when they didn't come up with correct answers, suddenly were talking nonsense without realizing it. The same thing happened when the verbal tasks grew more difficult.

So it seems that the many iterations of jargon aphasia are connected, and they all depend on how hard a brain has to work to match a concept to a word and check its own answers. This extends even to neurotypical people. Nearly everyone reading this has probably, at one time or another, been distractedly talking before being informed by a friend that they said a "wrong" word without even realizing it. Jargon aphasia means having that distraction, and that struggle for words, all the time.

http://io9.com/what-happens-when-your-brain-always-provides-you-with-t-1686356864