Chummy, unable to ride a bike, declares that she will get about on Shank’s Pony. The other girls remark that their territory is 8 square miles, and “Shank’s Pony” isn’t going to cut it, and she is going to have to learn to ride a bicycle.
Shank’s Pony clearly is a euphemistic way of saying “I’ll walk” I guess referring to the shanks in one’s shoes.
There was a jazz song, I think, that mentioned “Driving my shoes” in a similar way…making it obvious that you had to walk, but jokingly dressing it up as a preferred way to get about.
I’m wondering about other such colorful ways of describing walking that are in actual use. Not just slang like “hoofing it” but with the added bit of dressing it up…“Taking the Adidas limited” would be the sort of thing, if I hadn’t just made that up.
I found the jazz song I was thinking of: Tom Scott “Got to get out of New York” After the 1:30 intro, the lyrics start out “I was playin’ the blues and drivin’ my shoes when I moved to New York…”
I’ve mostly heard this one as “shank’s mare”. This article indicates that it’s derived from a Scottish expression “shank it”, which is in turn a reference to shanks as leg bones. An earlier variant was apparently “shank’s nag” (or some creative spelling thereof).
While not directly on point, the expression “sneakernet” (a method of transferring files by carrying a floppy from one computer to another) is related.
Zero euphemismsin this thread so far - and there won’t be any either. In order for a euphemism to exist for any X, that X has to be somehow socially unacceptable or painful. Walking does not meet those criteria. A euphemism is a let’s say ‘family-friendly’ term: ‘To pass away’ is euphemism for ‘to die’, and ‘last year’s unpleasantness’ can be a euphemism for the time when you got drunk and danced on the table naked in front of your inlaws until you passed out in your own bodily fluids (which in turn is a euphemism for piss, barf, and shit).
Well, it’s a figure of speech, at any rate. It’s probably somewhere in the category of metaphor, but I can’t find anything with the very specific “used to humorously refer to a neutral topic” connotation.
Actually, to the point that there is some embarrassment involved in not having the money to pay for other means of transport, these can be considered euphemisms.