the.com/ancient history
The excuse you give an ex's name when it clearly still stings.
means Used ironically to dismiss something as irrelevant or long over, usually while betraying that it's anything but.
from Literally, 'ancient history' once just meant the study of the distant past — Greece, Rome, that whole crowd. The sarcastic, dismissive use ('oh, that's ancient history') grew naturally from the phrase's literal sense: if something's as remote as the fall of Rome, it shouldn't still matter. The irony is that people usually say it about things from a few months ago, which is exactly what gives it away.
- official cutoff
- usually ends around 476 CE, Rome's fall
- ironic use
- means forgotten, yet historians never stop studying it
- emotional meaning
- often a lie about how over it you are