Questionable Claims
- Our
products will tickle your curiosities. (Japanese software ad copy, contributed by Gary Heayes)
- A salesman told viewers that a keyboard would teach "your mind's eye
to play by ear." (Home Shopping Network, 12/9/2000, submitted by James
Breig)
- He was bothered mentally mainly by the physical plague. (Timothy Cleary's
student)
- Once you open a can of worms, they always come home to roost. (Mike
McConnel on WLW Radio, Cincinnati - contributed by Bruce Haining)
- A friend of mine swears his girlfriend's mother has accused the two of them
of living "high on the cob." (Jerry Kindall)
Amazing Feats
- He swept the rug under the carpet. (Brendan Earle)
- She grabbed the bull by the horns, and ran with it. (Andrew vonderLuft)
- I've hit the nail on the jackpot. (Purdy )
- I'm shooting from the seat of my pants. (Doug James)
- You're pulling my leg over my eyes. (Trev Schellenberg)
- She knocked the socks off the ball. (William Turner)
- With Lenny in, Carl will fold like a domino! (The Simpsons, contributed by Michael Skinner)
- I'm flying by the edge of my seat (Laura Dempsey)
- He'll argue until the cat turns blue" (Harmston Hospital building dept., contributed by Pete Mitchell)
- He really grates me up the wrong way (Sarah Walker, contributed by Laura Dempsey)
- We are treading on thin water (contributed by Alan Freitag)
- We'll be there until the fat lady freezes over. (Contributed by Philip Cardwell)
Noteworthy Observations
- That's the pot calling the kettle's bluff. (Peterjohn)
- Idle hands are the mother of invention. (Charles Pastoor)
- It's not rocket surgery. (John Ryan)
- Newspaper headline: THE ASSASSIN'S KNIFE CLOUDS FRANCE'S SKIES (Discovered by Sam Greydanus; contributed by Paul Spyksma)
- If you're up on your history, you should enjoy this one (from one
of my composition students): "Rosa Parks shows us you can make major
changes even in government when you stand up for what you believe in."
(Steve Harthorn)
- He's got too many oars in the fire. (Pam Heffron, submitted by her
admiring husband David)
- That's a hard bubble to crack. (Doug James)
- An ideal mind is the devil's playground. (Todd Gibson)
- Announcer during 1998 Valparaiso vs. Rhode Island basketball game: "We'll just have to see if they can keep this Cinderella slipper alive." (Contributed by Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb)
- Rattle some feathers. (Joanne Puglisi, contributed by Doug James)
- Chicken guarding the hen house (Kevin LeBeau)
- We'll tackle that bridge when we come to it. (Colorado Springs Gazette,
quoting former Sky Sox manager, now a major league baseball manager;
contributed by Doug James)
- You can beat a dead horse to water, but you can't make him drink. (Karl Swedberg)
- The tip of the iceberg is a stepping stone. (Brian N. Cunningham)
- The monkey is in your court. (Charlie Whittaker)
- he's like a cat out of water - the antithesis being
more interesting.... `a duck on a hot tin roof' (Karin Fletcher)
- Not to put her up on a limestone, but my sister is really terrific. (Chris Nobles)
- well, that's a feather in your pocket. (Mim DiBiase's father-in-law)
- That was the last hump on the camel. (Robert V. Dodd)
- That sure did take the steam out of his sails (Bea)
- Running around like children with their heads cut off (Rob Clark)
- He is not the sharpest cookie in the jar (anonymous)
- A rolling stone kills no birds (Guy Cousineau)
- That's putting the chicken before the cart (anonymous)
Warnings to Heed
- Beware my friend...you are skating on hot water (contributed by Randy Brown)
- I would not trust him with a ten foot pole (contributed by Liz Boehmler)
Situations to Avoid
- You're out on a limb without a paddle. (Robert V. Dodd)
- They're clearly up the creek without a leg to stand on (Laura Dempsey)
- Donna Williams' junior high school teacher used to tell whining students that they were "up a tree without a paddle."
- You're sailing close to thin ice (heard on ABC radio Melbourne by Martha Curry)
- We are beating a dead drum (anonymous)
- We're robbing Peter to pay the piper (Randy Brown)
- I'm tired of walking on kid gloves (contributed by Annette Orban and Andrew O'Connor)
- I don't want to step on your thunder (contributed by Annette Orban and Andrew O'Connor)I
- I'm so hungry I could beat a dead horse. (Jeffrey Simpkins)
Cheer Up - I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel. (Martha Curry, Australia)
- There's a pot of gold at the end of the tunnel (Anna Beattie)
- The world is your lobster. (Kevin Parker)
There's nothing quite like it, really
- Some people sail through life on a bed of roses like a knife slicing
through butter. (Contributed by Andrea Dekker)
- Those two get on like a horse on fire. (Gary Heayes, heard from a
college friend)
- It's as easy as falling off a piece of cake. (John Grist, 1997; contributed
by his admiring wife Maria)
- the lining's always more silver on the other side of the cloud (chemikalman)
- It's a walk in the cake. (chemikalman)
- My purses were selling like wild cakes. (Annette Drachenberg)
- I
can't answer that - it's out of my water. (Fred Rosenberg's manager)
- Oh no, I've
already got too many black sheep in my closets! (Luke Boston's wife Nancy)
- I'ts fun to do things on the spur of a whim! (Reni Winter's son Paul)
Questionable Advice
- Don't do the crime if you can't get out the kitchen. (Krystal Washington)
- People who wear glass slippers shouldn't kick stones. (Charles Pastoor)
- Don't look a gift horse in the eye. (Emily's dad)
- Keep your ear to the grindstone. (Good Will Hunting - Contributed
by Christopher Kuipers)
- You have to walk before you can swim. (Brendan Earle)
- Don't come running to me if you break your leg! (Mick McKeown)
- You'll get into hot water skating on thin ice! (Mick McKeown)
- Better not open THAT Panacea's box. (Joe Stapf)
- Don't beat a dead horse in the mouth. (Karl Swedberg)
- We should get our foot in the door and get the ball rolling. (Roy Robinson,
contributed by Brian N. Cunningham)
- A rolling stone catches the worm (Laura Dempsey)
- Keep your ear to the grapevine. (Rosaleen Dempsey's friend Barbara)
- Just keep your eye on the pie. (Alexis McKinnis)
- Don't count your chickens until you see the whites of their eyes. (Paul Govereau)
- Sometimes you just have to let sleeping dogs fall where they may" Owner of a country store in Arkansas, contributed by Roger Caughman)
- Once the toothpaste is out of
the tube, it's too late to close the barn door. (Gene Waters)
- Once the horse is out of
the barn, you can't put him back again. (Fox News, contributed by Gene Waters)
- Let's not open that can of worms until we get this one nailed down. (Timothy O'Brien)
- Let's call the kettle what it is! ("Would that be black, or a spade?" wonder contributors Annette Orban and Andrew O'Connor)
Anatomical Curiosities
- You've gotta stick your neck out on a limb sometimes. (Janette Kok's
former roommate, or else one of Sam Greydanus's professors' lectures)
- We freshmen are a little green behind the ears. (Contributed by Roderick
Jellema)
- A sound mind and a sound body go hand in hand. (Glenn Meeter's other
student)
- It's on the tip of my frontal lobotomy. (John Juergens)
- Zipping one's lips and throwing away the key (Friend of Nathan Roberts,
on IRC)
- Once again, the Achilles' heel of the Philadelphia Eagles' defense
has reared its ugly head. (From an NFL football broadcast several years
ago; contributed by David Roberts, Calvin '64)
- Running around like a chicken with its legs cut off (Sports Night
tv show, contributed by Doug James)
- Makes the hair stand up on the edge of my seat (Pete Kneppel, contributed
by Doug James)
- Shivers of joy running up and down my throat (Pete Kneppel, contributed
by Doug James)
- He's trying to gain a foothold in the public eye. (Norm Crosby, contributed by Mike Slay)
- Philip Freneau had one foot in the 18th century while with the other he hailed the dawn of a new day." (Glenn Meeter's student)
- We all
have our own legs to pull. (Matt Brandon's company president, trying to motivate the staff)
- Taking the bull with both feet (Randy Brown)
- Walking with your head between your legs (Dmitri Young, St Louis
Cardinals, contributed by Doug James)
- She wears her heart up her sleeve (contributed by Annette Orban)
Adjoining Metaphors
- If you let the cat out of the bag, how can you let sleeping dogs lie?
- Surely we'll dig up the past, in order to bury the hatchet.
- If you spill the beans, then you'll open a can of worms
(All three heard on Yes, Prime Minister! and contributed by R.S. Kushwaha)
- Let's get the skeletons out of the closet and onto the table. (Larry Sulak, then Head of Boston University Physics Department; contributed by Phil Nelson)
Unclassified
- It was so cold last night I had to throw another blanket on the fire.
(Robert Northrop)
- Which way are the tea leaves blowing? (Doug James)
- Time rolled up like a scroll, while the plague nibbled at the edges
of their years. (Timothy Cleary's student, not necessarily the same
one)
- You've buttered your bread, now lie in it. (An acquantance of Saupe's
long-lost friend Attila the Nun)
- Clearly we've opened a pandora's box of worms here. (David Yates)
- Burning the midnight oil at both ends - From a radio commercial
(Nathan Roberts)
- Marching to the beat of a dead horse - Someone's definition of fanaticism
(Nathan Roberts)
- "The Loafing Class," by David Horowitz (Salon, February 8,
1998), begins: "Shiftless, lazy good-for-nothings? Try the richly paid
leftist professors securely ensconced in their irrelevant ivory towers."
In the penultimate paragraph, he offers this memorable image: "Neither
do they, like Aronowitz and his armchair comrades, tilt at the windmills
of a capitalist patriarchy from whose teat they feed, trampling on academic
standards and abusing the educational aspirations of their young charges."
(Contributed by Jim Vanden Bosch)
- In the New York Times on the Web "Current Cinema" forum, someone contributing
to a thread on "As Good as it Gets" offered up this gem with regard
to the performances of the actors in that film: "If [Jack] Nicholson
was the peanut butter and [Helen] Hunt was the jelly, [Greg] Kinnear
was the bread, drawing the two together in a bear hug." Yikes. (Dennis
Holtrop)
- Years ago, I heard a politician deny he was threatening a certain
action by saying, "I don't want to hold an open manhole over your head."
(James Breig)
- We'll burn those bridges when we get to them. (Daniel Willis)
- I wouldn't trust him with my bargepole (Karin Fletcher)
- I hate to
put you through all this rigor mortis. (Gene Waters)
- I'd like to be sitting in his shoes. (Doug James's student)
- You've put your finger right on the nail. (Timothy O'Brien)
- This will help us to know that we are covering all of the gamuts. (Timothy 'Brien)
- Hey, I hope you can help me, I'm kind of up against the gun here. (Timothy O'Brien)
- THIS is the problem we are wringing our hair over. (Timothy O'Brien)
- It's time to step up to the plate and cut the mustard (Randy Brown)
- Grasping at the straw that broke the camel's back (Randy Brown)
- He'll take your head off at the blink of a hat." (Joe Theismann,
talking about an NFL draftee - contributed by Doug James)
- "We don't need to skirt around the bush." (Luther Mack of the Nevada
State Athletic Commission, commenting on Mike Tyson's eligibility - contributed by Doug James)
- Don't mind me. I'm just a mouse on the wall. (Doug James's student)
- I'd like to be a fish on the wall at that meeting. (anonymous)
- You have to shoot where the fish are barking (anonymous)
- He's not the brightest cookie in the lamp (anonymous)
- We are just scratching
the tip of the iceberg (from a TV program about squids, heard by Rex Mercer)
- Now you have hit it on the head with the nail (contributed by Annette Orban and Andrew O'Connor)
A bouquet from Kevin Parker:
- Between closed walls
- Run your kite up the flagpole
- Nail our fingers to the mast
Evidence of General Linguistic Confusion
As contributor Paula Morrison admits, these are not exactly mixed metaphors. But since we don't have a page for whatever they are, this page will have to serve "for all intensive purposes" (thanks, Tim Kimrey).
- Due process of elimination
- photostatic memory
- individually as a group
- crust of the problem
- start at square zero
- anally retentive
- adhering (inherent) problems
- anacronym
James Breig reports hearing an irate caller on C-Span
exclaim to author and FoxNews host Bill O'Reilly, "I wouldn't buy your
book if you gave it to me."
Mixed Metaphors can inspire us
- A sermon by Dr. Mickey Anders
- And another by Pastor Meyer
- but attempting this without professional training could be dangerous (an editorial by Bob Hall)
Links to more mixed metaphors
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