"...That Gerhardt guy was just being too cute by half..."
I have been using that expression for years and have no idea where I picked it up. I did have a lovely, well-educated British female supervisor long ago--could it be from the Brits? But then I also had a Cockney friend who might have used it. And what does it really mean? So I can tell someone who asks the next time I use it.
lol....I don't know what it means either...but I have heard it all my life...
I bet we could have a whole thread on sayings that don't make sense!!!
Did a gooogle on 'too cute by half':
In Reply to: too cute by half posted by Fred on May 23, 2004
: Why 'half'? Wouldn't 'two' make more sense?
Here's some information from the archives:
"By half" is an idiom defined as "by a great deal; much, considerably, far" (Oxford English Dict.).
Example from the year 1400, approx.: "Thowe arte to hye by [the] halfe, I hete [the] in trouthe!" ("Morte Arthure"). I think this translates as "Thou art too high [proud? ambitious?] by the half, I promise thee in truth."
Example from 1777: "Pshaw! he is too moral by half" (Sheridan, "School for Scandal").
The dictionary doesn't say whether "by half" implies an exact fraction, but the phrase suggests to me "So-and-so is 50% more clever than he should be."
My impresson is that it means OVERLY cute.