This is the 16th of William Safire’s 18 rules for writers. I
want to think of some funny, maybe even hilarious, ways to illustrate this one.
The best person for this was Yogi Berra. Here are some of his gems.
A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
The future ain’t what it used to be.
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you
are going, because you might not get there.
It gets late early out here.
Another couple of masters of this are Batiuk and Ayers, the
creators of the comic strip Crankshaft.
Speaking of Italian cucumbers, Crankshaft says: I really
like to ciao down on those.
About a bad football team: …they’re just a bunch of overpaid
quarterbucks.
Something else is:…easy as rolling off a pie.
I guess a misstated idiom is actually a malapropism, right?
My character Mr. Toombs, a character in my own Eine Kleine Murder, spoke of the “phrases
of the moon.” I got that from a guy I worked for when I was a teenager. Cracked
me up.
Do you have favorite idioms? Or messed up idioms?
All images from
morguefile.com
Years ago while in a clothing store, I heard a woman say, "I'm going to get me some of those groucho pants." I guess that's a malapropism. Groucho pants have been out of style so long, people might not get it. My uncle's wife once mentioned a "scrapegoat." I must get that into a story.
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