Meaning of old man yelling at a cloud | Babel Free

Definitions

Noun. [C2]

Examples

“The website Fangraphs recently crowd-sourced fans to rate baseball broadcast teams; NESN’s rated 11th, down from fifth last year, but the comment on Eckersley was perfect: “When [Dennis Eckersley] is in the booth, it’s prime time. He’s an example of what Hawk Harrelson could be if he wasn’t an angry old man yelling at a cloud.””

“I’m sure that I’m just an old man yelling at a cloud here, but I hate the proliferation of glass roof panels across so many cars.”

“One bizarre incident occurred in Bristol, where artist Banksy replaced hundreds of copies of Paris with doctored versions bearing airbrushed topless photos and notes reading “Race to the bottom of the pile!”, “What am I for?” and “Why am I famous?” Today, the doctored CDs are worth around £6,000 each, but the stunt also bears the stench of an old man yelling at a cloud.”

“No matter what happens, though, it will never be the same. Maybe that’s just a sign of our times, and the price of progress. Maybe I’m just an old man yelling at a cloud. But for this child of the Pac-8, it still hurts my heart.”

“The trouble is, the message has been pitched in a novel way, making it easy to cast the likes of Moore in a Boomer-bashing Simpsons meme: she’s the old man yelling at a cloud, or Principal Skinner asking himself ‘Am I out of touch?’ before concluding, ‘No, it’s the children who are wrong.’”

CEFR level