Every tool has a silver lining
Minced Metaphors
Up for some DIY? This week’s collection is long on impact but short on technical accuracy. These mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language could use some repair; but, broken as they might appear, they induce levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine nonetheless.
I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I avidly collect others’ with glee, I know I’m not alone.
I’ve heard them called malaphors and malaprops, but I strongly disagree with using malaprop as any part of a description; first, because the term is ill-applied in an ironic twist (malaprops are intentional attempts to sound grand); and second, because mal itself, meaning “bad” is simply untrue—fun with words is never bad!
I’d go for something like risiphor or ridiphor, using the Latin risus, past participle of ridere "to laugh," meaning "laughable, capable of exciting laughter, comical" + pherein "to carry, bear" (from PIE root *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children"). The result? “bearing laughter offspring.” Perfect!
As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Emily!”
Although it bothers some who actually get these expressions right, the endless combinations that the rest of us come up with deserve a wide-girthed mirth berth.
And, even though these might technically appear to be…well…mistakes, I think they show a lack of rigidity at worst, and a creative brilliance at best. In fact, an utterance combining more than two original elements is golden in my book.
So, I say we enjoy these twisted treasures for all they’re cracked up to be. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”
Happily, it’s genetic.
You’ll be riveted, but as you drill down, you might want to wrench the tools from my hands for ratcheting up and nailing down these screwy saws, so I’m fixin’ to bolt…
Screwloose and fancy-free.
Times are as tough as nails.
A good carpenter never blames the sharpest tool in the shed.
It was the spanner in the ointment.
You hit the nail right on the nose.
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Oh, I'm going with "Screwloose and fancy-free"! How can I not?