what does this mean? where does it come from?

jackie1980 | 01:11 Thu 29th Dec 2005 | Phrases & Sayings

3 Answers

i understand, you undertake, to undermine, my undertaking

Day birth saying

it's a cracker!

Answers

1 to 3 of 3

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halfadaily

Hi Jackie, it's an answer in a quiz that appeared on Yahoo,but I can't find what the question was !!

Now I'm intrigued as well

Richard

Quizmonster

If you remove the three commas - which are quite unnecessary, as far as I can see - you get (working backwards)...
The noun 'undertaking' is a project or some such thing one is involved in producing and to 'undermine' means to foil/spoil/prevent something happening. The verb 'to undertake' means to promise/arrange/agree etc and 'I understand' means I have been told/I believe etc.
So, putting it all together, the speaker has been told that the person he's speaking to has arranged to spoil the project the speaker's working on.
I've no idea where it comes from, but Halfadaily's answer above may well be right.

gen2

The question that this stems from is a dingbat reproduced below:

What statement is represented by the following?

STAND TAKE MINE TAKING
.....I.........U........2.......MY...

Googling for the phrase "I understand you undertake to undermine my undertaking" gives 259 hits. Without actually going through all of them, they do all appear to be the same puzzle that has been doing the rounds.

1 to 3 of 3

Do you know the answer?