Certain English-language idioms grate on me. One in particular:

“Eat your heart out”.

I’ve never gotten a good feel for the meaning it’s supposed to convey. Especially because I’ve never seen it used in any form other than the indirect second-person — “You can eat your heart out” — and never in a descriptive form — “He’s still eating his heart out over missing his date”. To me, it’s an awkward turn of the phrase.

It’s probably because it’s something of an antiquated term. I don’t think I’ve heard it used conversationally since I was a little kid, and I rarely ever see it in contemporary writing. Maybe it’s fading toward linguistic oblivion; I won’t be sorry to see it go.