You've got to shoot which way the wind bows

Minced Metaphors

Dec 06, 2024

windmill pointing east — Photo by Jordan Ladikos on Unsplash

We’ve made it to the end of the week, so it’s time to lighten the mood with muddled metaphors, idioms, and other valiant-but-failed attempts at figurative language. 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 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, Artemis!”

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, a risiphor 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 can shoot a photo, a basketball, an email, an arrow, or a projectile. You can shoot for the stars. You can shoot the breeze, too, but I’d challenge anyone to shoot the wind—especially broken wind, as we do not need any shatticisms.

This week’s mashups are mishaps waiting to happen. Bonus: one of these manages to mix up not just two, but three ill-conceived, illogical idioms!