yell at clouds

• yell at a cloud, yell at cloud, yell at the cloud, yell at the clouds

From old man yells at cloud.

yell at clouds (third-person singular simple present yells at clouds, present participle yelling at clouds, simple past and past participle yelled at clouds)

1. (intransitive, humorous or derogatory) To express a trivial, out-of-touch, or idiosyncratic grievance.
   • 2018 January 9, Allan Mitchell, “Gauging the Edmonton Oilers' needs and tendencies for the 2018 NHL draft”, in The Athletic‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 January 2026:

     The Edmonton Oilers will once again be prominent at an entry draft, the 2018 edition three full years past the Connor McDavid draft lottery win. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to pitch a fit, kick over a pink flamingo and yell at clouds, but after that there’s some pretty big business to be conducted at the 2018 NHL entry draft.

   • 2020 June 25, Seth Partnow, “An analytical study of defense, shooting, and small ball, with an expert’s help”, in The Athletic‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 January 2026:

     But at least given how it had looked at the time they made the Capela trade, playing “normally” was even less likely “to work” against the Angelinos, red or purple. This falls into that category of things which are destined to annoy analytics types, in that a strategy that makes a longshot win less of a longshot but still unlikely is seen as a failure if it doesn’t completely upend the laws of probability. But I’ll stop yelling at clouds and wrap this up.

   • 2025 August 29, Max Rushden, “New season, new things: extreme non-football actions and children on the pitch”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎^[3], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 1 September 2025:

     New season – new directives from the PGMO. Oh, here we go, don’t spend too long on this one. Could holding in the box be the new handball? The thing that has us yelling at clouds. “I just don’t know the rules any more.” “This isn’t why people fell in love with the game.”

• Often used with old preceding the subject, as in the original phrase.