Mixed Metaphors

[Byzantine]

I'm looking for some help on mixed metaphors you have heard. My favorite that my father always says is: That's a horse of a different feather that has lost his color.

[No Me Ayudes Compadre]

I used to work with a woman who once said, "That'll stick out like a red herring."

[Sylence]

Don't know if this counts, but I once said "I'm running around like a head with my chicken cut off."

-- Sylence

------------------
"The problem with reality is the lack of background music." -- Anon

[Shirley Ujest]

This is stolen from Win Ben Stein's Money

"Don't look a whore's gift in the mouth"

and my personal favorite:

"We were like two ships sinking in the night."

[Shirley Ujest]

I use to work with a woman who was from Yugoslavia and spoke excellent english. She would occasionally mix her metaphors. The best one was

"I'm a nervous basket"

When she meant to say, " I'm a basket case."

[Byzantine]

These are GREAT! Keep them coming folks!

[ChuckSki]

I have a coworker who uses

"Well, that's water under the dam."

I guess that's a mix between water OVER the dam and water UNDER the bridge.

My favorite, albeit a bit off of this topic, is the Ted Kennedy response (probably made-up but great any way) to some future event:
"We'll drive off of that bridge when we get to it." he he he!!

------------------
"The intellectuals' chief cause of anguish are one another's works."
Jacques Barzun
Cheers! CAL

[AWB]

• We'll burn that bridge when we cross it.
• Up s**t creek without a paddle.
• Close the barn door after you've led the horse to water.
• There's more that one way to skin the cat out of the bag.
• Don't count all your eggs in one basket.
• He who hesitates hasn't leapt first.
• Early to bed and late to rise, and your girl goes out with other guys.

[TheNerd]

Take that to the bank and smoke it.
Or, Put that in your Pope and smoke it.

People tell me one thing one day and out the other.

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

Run it up the flag pole and see what sticks.

Well, that's more metaphors than you can walk softly and shake a big stick at. In this board there are too many chiefs who are drunk as ten Indians. No racism intended; that would be the pot calling another kettle of fish. Speaking of which, you can give a man one and he eats for a day, but those who can't fish, teach. You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. Don't carry all your tunes in one bucket. It is better to light a candle than to curse how many it takes to screw in a lightbulb. Fuck you AND the horse's mouth. It's my way or the highway, buster, and I'm living life in the turn lane. Thank you for your time and temperature.

[Byzantine]

Man, you guys are good! I knew this would be the place to ask this question! Thank you and more MORE!


------------------
The moon looks on many flowers, the flowers on but one moon.

[dougie_monty]

In a book titled How to Avoid Matrimony, author Herald Froy makes an interesting comment about the broadcast media coaxing men into marriage:
Änd even when television has its octopus feelers in the pie."

War is hell on wheels. Love is a thorn.
The squeaky wheel gets the elbow grease; oil and water flock together. A rose by any other name smells after 3 days; stop to consider the lillies; seize the daisies. If the shoe fits, it is on the other foot. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single foot in the mouth. Glass houses make good neighbors. You'll be laughing out of the other side of next week. One man's mate is another man's bison. You can't tell a book by its feathers. A bird in the hand is the Devil's workshop; it is the goose that laid the bad apple. If wishes were horses, beggars would eat like French kings. If a tree falls on a mime, does it make a sound? The cat is out of the wet paper bag. There is honey and vinegar in the fly ointment. The ox is slow, but the sword is a plowshare. Guns or butterflies are free to fly into the flame. If you hang around a barbershop long enough, sooner or later you will get fleas. Misery loves strange bedfellows.

[JoeBlank]

Not as funny as the rest, but one of my favorites:

"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, running over the same of ground, and have we found the same old fears, wish you were here"

Pink Floyd, lyrics by Roger Waters

[Tymp]

A bird in the hand is better than a gift horse in the mouth.

Why buy the cow when the gift horse is free?
It's always darkest before the storm. Still waters and oil don't mix. Don't count your chickens before the well runs dry. Every thorn has a silver lining. She's the apple of a pig's eye. He who laughs last has the best medicine. Don't bite off more than a bitter pill to swallow. Wake up and spill the beans. Too many cooks peed on your wienies.

[Byzantine]

TennHippie I just have to ask: Too many cooks peed on your weenies?

I love it! But is it a combo of "too many cooks spoil the broth" and ... well, what? I don't know any that have weenies in them! Oh boy, I can see that sentence getting me in trouble! Let me know some more on this one!
And a big hug here, folks, I asked this same question in other boards and got a big zip in response. Thanks to all who have shared. Even the non-sequitur Pink Floyd thing (were you looking for the thread, Breathe, Breathe in the air?) Or am I not getting it? That thread is hysterical! I keep hearing, Heave, heave at the fair every time I hear that song on the radio now!




------------------
The moon looks on many flowers, the flowers on but one moon.

All the world's a stage and everybody plays the fool. No man is an island port in the storm. When it rains, make lemonade. I don't mean to burst your parade. Let them eat cake and have it, too. Don't bite the hand that knows what the left hand is doing. Blood is thicker than turnip juice. Small acorns don't fall far from the tree. Don't cut off your nose to bury the hatchet. To make an omelette, you gotta break a leg. Sink or swim against the current. There's plenty of fish in the sea to fry. You made your bed, now lay with dogs. A watched pot is half empty; a jug of wine is half full. The pin is tidier than the sword. There's a fox in the cathouse. It's like shooting fish in a barrel of monkeys.

Hey Byz: The Reverend moons many flower children; the followers on one Rev. Moon.

[Byzantine]

TennHippie you keep this up and I'm gonna fall in love!

It really should have read: The Reverend moons many flower children, the followers on butt one Rev. Moon.

[Byzantine]

Okay, gotta change the panties about now... think I laughed so hard I peed!

[Toymaker]

"You buttered your bread. Now you'll have to sleep in it."

"There's been a lot of spilt milk under the bridge."

"This thing is snowballing like a house afire!"

[Shirley Ujest]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it a duck.

Hey Byz: When in Rome, air your dirty landry(or wet panties) in public. Speaking of Rome, it wasn't built on clay feet in a day at the beach, you know. It's all Greek to a blind horse. Spare the rod and spoil the milk. With the faith of a molehill, you can make mountains out of mustard seeds. The early bird gets the wormy apple. Let him who is without sin cast the first vote.

[Gilligan]

Comment I heard this morning: "She doesn't know her ass from a hole in her head."

[okatym]

"Okay, okay, you don't have to beat it with a dead horse".
or
"It's six, or one and a half dozen of the other."

When somebody got a colostomy, I heard a crank say "He don't know his ass from a hole in his side!"

[Byzantine]

TennHippie, here's that thread.

[neuro-trash grrrl]

Hey, these mexed mitaphors are the greatest thing since sliced beer!

[BurnMeUp]

He's about at useless as a weasle in a cardboard shirt!

------------------
Don't let the loveless ones sell you a world wrapped in grey.

[quetz]

Actually came out of my wife's mouth once when she was pissed at the cat:

"I'll hit you so hard you won't know which way is next Tuesday."

[Gozu Tashoya]

I had a co-worker that'd say, "It's no shit off my teeth." Nice picture, huh?

[Levi Fuller]

one of my favorites, from the great lyricist Sting:

"packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes."

What?

[meek]

My favorite malapropism is from Archie Bunker.

"That's about as funny as a rubber crotch"

[Robot Arm]

If he were alive today, he'd be turning over in his grave.

And one of my favorite song lyrics, "A million lemmings can't be wrong."

[KevinLeeC]

I was at a corporate training session once and the presenter used the phrase:

"married at the hip"

to express her committment to an idea.

KC

[PTVroman]

Necessity is the mother of strange bedfellows.

[don willard]

Some of these above aren't so much mixed metaphors as mixed up metaphors, malapropisms, puns, and solecisms. A pure mixed metaphor is, "Soon we'll iron all the bugs out of this problem."

[iksova]

Useless as a chocolate teacup!!!!!

[Freudian Slit]

Originally posted by Robot Arm
If he were alive today, he'd be turning over in his grave.

And one of my favorite song lyrics, "A million lemmings can't be wrong."

Pray tell..what song would that be?

[Freudian Slit]

Originally posted by don willard
A pure mixed metaphor is, "Soon we'll iron all the bugs out of this problem."

What's that a mix up of? It sound pretty normal to me just the way it is...

[Tymp]

Creepy.

This thread contains my second (and now my latest) post to the SDMB.

[Myron Van Horowitzski]

Don's right...a true mixed metaphor is not just some frankensteinian aphorism.

The classic example of a mixed metaphor is from Hamlet's soliloquoy: "..take arms against a sea of trouble." If you're going to take arms, metaphorically speaking, it's against an army or host, not some body of water.

Viz, Zoggie, you iron out wrinkles, not bugs.

[Robot Arm]

Originally posted by Zoggie
Pray tell..what song would that be?

It's from Happy Endings (Romeo and Juliet) by Andrew Ratchin. A cheerfully cynical musing on Romeo and Juliet, and romance in general. The full quatrain is

Maybe a lover comes along
Maybe in story or in song
Maybe the heart is really strong
A million lemmings can't be wrong

Full lyrics at http://www.yellowtailrecords.com/lyr...lly.html#Romeo


And nobody could mix a metaphor like Yogi Berra.
"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
"If people aren't gonna come to the ball park, how can you stop them."
"Pair up in threes."

[threetrueoutcomes]

My personal fave, attributed to Villanova basketball coach Jack Kraft:

"That's the nail that broke the coffin's back."

[malaka]

I work with a woman who regularly mixes her metaphors. Such as: I'm between a rock and the frying pan.

Also, (not really a mixed metaphor, but funny nevertheless) from the movie Tommy Boy:

He tries to say: You can take a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a bull's ass, but wouldn't you rather take the butcher's word for it?

But it comes out: You know, you can get a good look at a butcher's ass by shoving your head up it but wouldn't you rather take his word for it?

[teela brown]

From Walt Kelly:

"You can't pull my wool over the ice!"

[don willard]

In "ironing the bugs out" of something the mixed metaphors are metaphor 1: ironing, meaning eliminating wrinkles and thus problems; metaphor 2: getting the bugs out, meaning
eliminating problems. But they are mixed and thus present a picture of bugs being burnt by a hot iron, which is not what the person making the metaphor meant to bring to mind....

[Ponyboy]

I have a friend in the Border Patrol whose boss was raking him over the coals for a poor Spanish test score.
His boss remarked "If you can't cut the cheese you're out of here!"