In searching for even more of these beauties, I came across one that said, “Pick me, oh, pick me!” I like it so much, I’m renaming this series Minced Metaphors, because, well, it is one. And it’s alliterative. It also happens to be a food-related allusion, perfect for today’s theme: food.
If you’re new here, welcome to the fun of these brilliantly blunderous blights on the language! For regular readers, feel free skip the intro and scroll down below the divider.
Bon appétit! -Kate
We’ve made it to the end of the week, so it’s time to lighten the mood with mangled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. Having said that, the results are inadvertent yet successful attempts at levity, jocularity, and generally increased levels of dopamine.
I destroy and recombine perfectly serviceable metaphors, idioms, and other innocents on a regular basis. Because I 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 cannot be 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? Carrying or bearing laughter offspring!
As a bonus, who could resist saying, “That is patently risiphorous!” or “Another great ridiphor, Max!”
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. As my daughter used to say when she was but a wee sass, “Mom, that tickles my timbers!”
Happily, it’s genetic.
This week’s theme is food: we can mince, mangle or masticate these mud muffins of deranged delicacy~
An apple a day keeps me on my toes.
No use crying over spilled beans.
It was as easy as falling off a pie!
That place had everything from soup to sauce.
It’s like drinking Kool-Aid from a fire hose.
This is gonna be a walk in the cake!
Heard any good ones lately? Please leave in the comments!
Additionally, I would love to hear from non-American English speakers: do these make sense to you, or are they based on American idioms? What do you say instead? What are some of your favorites (they don’t have to be food related) ?
If your timbers have, indeed, been tickled, please consider a paid or free subscription to support this fledgling overtaking!
Too many cooks spoil the child (?)