Mixed Metaphor ALERT!!!! "You nailed it" mixed with "You hit the nail on the head" Beautiful. I am a connoisseur of mixed metaphors. I hear them all the time with callers on the air and I have a running list here at the office. Everybody at works knows about my fascination and I will get an email once or twice a month from the jocks saying something along the lines of "Chance, I don't know if you caught this one, it was in the 5 o'clock hour...a caller asked Coach Capers why the guys didn't come out with their guns on fire" ('Guns a' blazing' or 'on fire') I like the natural ones better than the created ones but I have a buttload. Here are some of my favorites: • a penny saved is a penny earned the hard way • wake up and smell the roses • Sometimes you have to stop and smell the coffee • Sometimes you have to stop and smell what the Rock’s Cooking. • Blood is thicker than water under a bridge • There’s more than one way to skin a cat on a hot tin roof • Cut through all the red carpet • Pulled a fast one over my eyes • Like shooting monkeys in a barrel • Bit the farm • What goes up must come around • I heard that straight from the gift horse’s mouth • Pull a feather out of a hat • It’s darkest just before the dawn of the dead • Davy Crocket’s Locker • Fiddle while Romans are burning • Robbing Peter to pay the piper • RSVIP • Green behind the ears • Six and a half one way and a dozen the other • Put your John Addams on the paper • Hit the roof • Born with a silver bullet in your mouth • Bite the hair of the dog that feeds you • Count your blessings before you hatch • I wouldn’t touch that with a 10 Gallon Hat! • **** or get off your high horse • Dug myself a hole in the wall • Beauty is in the eye of the beast • Come out smelling like a champ. • Had that thing running like a well greased pig. • Running like a chicken with his head up his ass. • The weight of the world on his mind • Get the barrel of monkeys off your back • The calm before the storm of the century • **** rises to the top • Clicking on all cylinders • He took the thunder out of my sails. • Stir up a can of worms • I know so and so like the back of a book [/list=1] Most of those were generated by SR610 callers. If you have more let me have 'em!
Family loyalties are greater than those between friends - many believe the origins of this expression were actually based on the opposite of today's meaning of the phrase, and there there would seem to be some truth to the idea that blood friendship rituals and biblical/Arabic roots predated the modern development and interpretation of the phrase. Various references have been cited in Arabic and Biblical writings to suggest that it was originally based on Middle- and Far-Eastern customs, in which blood rituals symbolised bonds that were stronger than family ones. 'The blood of the covenant is stronger than the water of the womb' is an explanation quoted by some commentators. However the expression has certainly been in use for hundreds of years with its modern interpretation - ie., that blood is stronger than water (relatives being connected by blood, compared to the comparative weakness of water, symbolising non-family). In this sense, the metaphor is such an obvious one that it is likely to have evolved separately from the supposed 'blood brothers' meaning, with slightly different variations from different societies, over the many hundreds of years that the expression has been in use. Link
Our current Pres. is a big practictioner of mixed metaphors. I was going to bring up a few but then this thread would get moved to the dark side of the hole known as D & D.
or how about "****'s about to hit the shingle"? maybe I'm wrong, but I've heard sh*t on a shingle, and sh*t's about to hi the fan, but does anyone really say that???
Chance: To be fair, there is no difference between you nailed it right on the head, and you hit the nail on the head. ie: my response is simply stating you nailed it right on the head of the nail. Since this would be redundant, I didn't use it. A better faulting of this would be that I misquote a cliche. That would be accurate. Anyway, that is all. Never count your chickens before they get to the other side, ya know?
met·a·phor A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “a sea of troubles” or “All the world's a stage” (Shakespeare). cli·ché A trite or overused expression or idea: “Even while the phrase was degenerating to cliché in ordinary public use... scholars were giving it increasing attention” (Anthony Brandt).
good point FFB. You guys have come up with some good ones but I know there are more. Come on! Put a feather in your thinking caps and come up with some good ones!
Mixed clichés are the most common mixed metaphors and they might officially be known as wrongisms according to my recent googling. He’s a straight arrow who shoots from the hip. Too many cooks, not enough indians. It takes an old dog to know one. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't teach him new tricks.
The early bird catches the clap. One in the hand is worth two in the crotch. Early to bed and early to rise makes a very boring person. It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn't take any to sit with a dumb look on your face. The bigger they are, the faster I run. If at first you don't succeed, punch whomever suggested you try.
