I wrote a story once about Steve, a sales rep I worked with. He was the absolute king of these. As it says, he had a malapropensity, the gift of the gabble. Here’s a bit, all of these are genuine I promise you:
Like all salesmen, Steve had been taught that you should never give your customer the opportunity to say no. He achieved this by not giving them the opportunity to say anything at all. He spoke more than he listened and one of the people he didn’t listen to was himself. Words would spew from his mouth faster than his brain could check if they were the right ones, or even words at all.
One day I overheard him on the phone. “I can only give you a ballpoint figure,” he was saying. Now, that’s genius. A ballpoint figure; a hastily-penned calculation. It’s better than the original. But it was only a minute or so later when he said “I need to talk to you about costage” that I realised I was in the presence of a real talent. This was a man who could re-write dictionaries. Later that day he told me one of his clients had died, “And the family’s still in grievance.” For the next three years I followed him around, keeping a journal of his lexical dexterity. I was Boswell to his Johnson, and a lot of the time it was the best thing about my job.
There was nothing fake about Steve’s syntactic gymnastics. It was his stock-in-trade, or as he’d probably put it, his stocking trade. He was born with the gift of the gabble, a malapropensity. One evening I found him hovering by the windows on the 19th floor, looking flustered. “I’ve been running around all day like a blue-arsed chicken,” he said. His jaw tightened as he gazed out over the city towards the setting sun. “Some days you’re just banging your head against a brick shithouse.”
Steve’s fame spread around the editorial team and on boring afternoons we’d wander down to the sales department to see if he would mix us a metaphor. “The thing about sales,” he’d say, leaning back in his chair, “Is that you can never take your foot off the radar.”
People often told him he’d got a way with words, and most of the time that was true; he usually had got away with them, except on the occasions they got away from him.
Mrs D is accidentally good for this sort of thing. The other day she said “there’s no smoke without punch” but my all time favourite is “it’s a double barrelled sword”.
My sister is famous within the family unit for mixing her metaphors at every attempt, without fail and totally innocently. Only a few days ago she used the phrase “the silver lining on the cake” on the family WhatsApp.
@salwarpe – you’re right. I thought the albatross was just an unlucky thing for sailors – I vaguely knew it came from the poem but I didn’t know about the neck bit.
Thanks, BC. I’m no fan of the lengthy, verbose Romantic poets, so having endured a lesson on and not really got to grips with (i.e. taken the time to read) The Rime.., I thought I might as welluse what little I did get out of it.
Though I always preferred this from the National Lampoon; Deteriorata
You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here.
Deteriorata. Deteriorata.
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss, and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Remember The Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself.
If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you –
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Therefore, make peace with your god,
Whatever you perceive him to be – hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up!
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
I treasure my wife’s Thainglish, and sometimes adopt the phrases myself: “In my lone” for on my own, “in bicy-cun” for on bicycle, “very technology” (equally stressed syllables – tech-nol-o-geeee”) for anything computer-related, and so on.
Moose the Mooche says
Have you thought of becoming a football pundit?
I withdraw that, he said, hastily doing a reverse ostrich.
Boneshaker says
Heavy is the head that has a silver lining.
Timbar says
That’s the gravy on the cake.
salwarpe says
He who hesitates to look before he leaps is lost
salwarpe says
Too many cooks make handy work of a light broth.
nogbad says
It was a bit of a damp squid.
Nick L says
Necessity is the mother of intention…
It’s a long lane that gathers no moss…
(Both copyright CJ, in Reggie Perrin)
Mike_H says
Don’t count your chickens before they cross the road.
Rigid Digit says
That’s the way the cookie gets ready to rumble
H.P. Saucecraft says
Once bitten, three’s a crowd.
hubert rawlinson says
Let’s run a dead cat up the flagpole and see if it bounces.
Moose the Mooche says
Nice to see everything on this thread is shit-shaped and Bristols fashion.
chiz says
I wrote a story once about Steve, a sales rep I worked with. He was the absolute king of these. As it says, he had a malapropensity, the gift of the gabble. Here’s a bit, all of these are genuine I promise you:
Like all salesmen, Steve had been taught that you should never give your customer the opportunity to say no. He achieved this by not giving them the opportunity to say anything at all. He spoke more than he listened and one of the people he didn’t listen to was himself. Words would spew from his mouth faster than his brain could check if they were the right ones, or even words at all.
One day I overheard him on the phone. “I can only give you a ballpoint figure,” he was saying. Now, that’s genius. A ballpoint figure; a hastily-penned calculation. It’s better than the original. But it was only a minute or so later when he said “I need to talk to you about costage” that I realised I was in the presence of a real talent. This was a man who could re-write dictionaries. Later that day he told me one of his clients had died, “And the family’s still in grievance.” For the next three years I followed him around, keeping a journal of his lexical dexterity. I was Boswell to his Johnson, and a lot of the time it was the best thing about my job.
There was nothing fake about Steve’s syntactic gymnastics. It was his stock-in-trade, or as he’d probably put it, his stocking trade. He was born with the gift of the gabble, a malapropensity. One evening I found him hovering by the windows on the 19th floor, looking flustered. “I’ve been running around all day like a blue-arsed chicken,” he said. His jaw tightened as he gazed out over the city towards the setting sun. “Some days you’re just banging your head against a brick shithouse.”
Steve’s fame spread around the editorial team and on boring afternoons we’d wander down to the sales department to see if he would mix us a metaphor. “The thing about sales,” he’d say, leaning back in his chair, “Is that you can never take your foot off the radar.”
People often told him he’d got a way with words, and most of the time that was true; he usually had got away with them, except on the occasions they got away from him.
hubert rawlinson says
Excellent maliphorically speaking.
Black Celebration says
I worked with someone like this – extremely nice man but the BS he used to spew out was remarkable.
“I don’t want us to be hot potato in the middle of a Chinese stand-off! “
Moose the Mooche says
That’s made me hungry.
Rigid Digit says
As easy as falling off a piece of cake
Leffe Gin says
This will upset the applecart full of hot potatoes
Rigid Digit says
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Vulpes Vulpes says
© Freewheelin’ Franklin, IIRC.
chiz says
Easy come, soonest mended
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it an omelette
Red sky at night, burning sheep
Jaygee says
Some conservative MP on the BBC last night said “it was time for Johnson to ship up or shape out”
Moose the Mooche says
Shape up and dance?
John Walters says
No one on here has obviously never heard of the legend that is Hylda Baker.
“ I can say that without fear of contraception “.
Moose the Mooche says
^He knows, you know.
(She liked the ‘Vish, did Hylda)
H.P. Saucecraft says
Yebbut that’s not a malaphor, innit.
Rigid Digit says
You can lead a gift horse to water, but you can’t look him in the mouth while drinking
Rigid Digit says
Red sky at night – light of shorter wavelengths is being dissipated by water vapour and atmospheric dust.
Red sky in the morning – same
Moose the Mooche says
Many a mickle makes brass from muck.
Jaygee says
That ship has sank
chiz says
Many a slip ‘twixt mickle and muckle
fentonsteve says
“I have been diagnosed with hypnotension, so I can only drink decapitated coffee.”
H.P. Saucecraft says
Again, not a malaphor. I don’t make the rules.
fentonsteve says
I know, but it always makes me laugh.
H.P. Saucecraft says
I had a friend whose garage had a congregated iron roof.
chiz says
I knew a choirboy who helped himself to the communal wine
BryanD says
Mrs D is accidentally good for this sort of thing. The other day she said “there’s no smoke without punch” but my all time favourite is “it’s a double barrelled sword”.
Beezer says
He’s had his fish
Buy a hook or a crook
The exception proves the pudding is in the eating
chiz says
You can’t have your kayak and heat it
The lease said the sauna’s mended
(c. Dennis Norden and Frank Muir, 1973)
BryanD says
People in grass houses shouldn’t stow thrones was probably another one of theirs.
salwarpe says
Usually preceded by a lengthy anecdote that made Ronnie Corbett’s armchair talks seem like a haiku.
BryanD says
Tooth company freeze a crowd was the punchline to another one as I recall.
hubert rawlinson says
Ah yes the convoluted tale by tortuous travel to the line of punch.
Moose the Mooche says
I’m throwing that one straight into the dustbin of geography.
Sewer Robot says
Never knew Frank and Dennis got up to such things. Sounds a lot like Myles Na Gopaleen’s Keats and Chapman yarns:
http://boatagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2012/05/quote-of-day-flann-obrien-with-nose-for.html?m=1
mikethep says
Carmen, ‘Toothy’ Gordon, moored (ie got married).
chiz says
“See nipples and diet”
I may have made that one up
Barry Blue says
It’s not the size of the dog in the manger, it’s the size of the mange in the dog
Mike_H says
You pays your money and skins your cat.
salwarpe says
Leave, long and perspire
One ring to set off the ansaphone
In space no-one can hear you, so scream!
Malaphors be with you
intoxicatedman says
My sister is famous within the family unit for mixing her metaphors at every attempt, without fail and totally innocently. Only a few days ago she used the phrase “the silver lining on the cake” on the family WhatsApp.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Sweet!
GCU Grey Area says
Run the flag up the pole to see which way the cat licks it.
Not sure if that’s a Reginald Perrin, or a Drop the Dead Donkey. I can hear it in Gus Hedges voice.
Black Celebration says
“It’s an albatross around his neck”
I hear that a great deal. It’s millstone. Although an albatross would be very inconvenient, I admit.
Also – “it’s a vicious cycle”
salwarpe says
But an albatross round the neck is a recognized metaphor from the Coleridge poem, surely?
It’s an Albert Ross round thing, heck!
Black Celebration says
@salwarpe – you’re right. I thought the albatross was just an unlucky thing for sailors – I vaguely knew it came from the poem but I didn’t know about the neck bit.
salwarpe says
Thanks, BC. I’m no fan of the lengthy, verbose Romantic poets, so having endured a lesson on and not really got to grips with (i.e. taken the time to read) The Rime.., I thought I might as welluse what little I did get out of it.
Moose the Mooche says
Knowledge will begin until I finish this song
‘Cuz the rime gets rougher as the rime goes on …
slotbadger says
“It’s time for Boris to ship up or shape out” – some hapless backbencher the other day
BrilliantMistake says
A microwave is the devil’s tumble drier
Vulpes Vulpes says
Look before you leak.
Moose the Mooche says
Dominic C’s motto…?
Vulpes Vulpes says
Julian Assange’s epitaph I fear.
retropath2 says
A stitch in time may even have been unnecessary.
(And, @HP, neither that.)
Junglejim says
As the Crofe lies (courtesy of young M Kermode)
‘…at the party they were skinning up like rabbits’
Not to be sneezed at
A leopard can’t change its spots in midstream
Raining cats & logs
I’ve heard all of these in the last couple of weeks.
retropath2 says
I’ve heard rats and frogs…
stevieblunder says
You braised husky!
Moose the Mooche says
She’s no better than I ought to be
mikethep says
We’ve all passed a lot of water since then.
pawsforthought says
I think I’d prefer that as “we’ve all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then.” In fact I think I might actually use that.
Moose the Mooche says
I use that all the time. I’m so hilarious.
Jim Cain says
I feel like the little boy with his finger in the dyke, crying wolf.
Moose the Mooche says
Pull your finger out so you can keep it on the pulse.
shells says
Caught between a stool and a hard place
let the hare stand up and be counted
Moose the Mooche says
A fool and his money seldom rush in.
Boneshaker says
…..where angels fear to throw stones.
dadwardo says
He’s only gone and thrown a spanner amongst the pigeons
Moose the Mooche says
Who rattled your nasturtiums?
retropath2 says
The Mothers of Invention are a necessity
Moose the Mooche says
Mrs M: I had to lick a lot of toads before I found my prince.
Me: You mean kiss a lot of frogs.
Her: I know what I mean.
Mike_H says
Keep your hair on at the last chance salon.
Moose the Mooche says
Something for the weakened, sir?
hubert rawlinson says
Saw this, thought it belonged here.
H.P. Saucecraft says
This is excellent advice all around. A Desiderata de nos jours.
hubert rawlinson says
Though I always preferred this from the National Lampoon; Deteriorata
You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here.
Deteriorata. Deteriorata.
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss, and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Remember The Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself.
If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you –
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Therefore, make peace with your god,
Whatever you perceive him to be – hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up!
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Mike_H says
Somewhere in WWW-land there is an amusing music festival-related Desiderata version recited by John Peel.
Moose the Mooche says
You do often hear and read of people applying a “fine tooth-comb”. Have we reached the stage where grooming includes combing our teeth?
fentonsteve says
Is that why Americans have straight teeth and Brits’ gnashers are wonky?
chiz says
See also ‘a hare’s breath’
Moose the Mooche says
That’s actually pretty good. Unless it’s superannuated playwright David Hare, who strikes me as a right Mr Huff and Puff.
Mike_H says
Time to pull your foot up.
And put your socks down.
He’s turned his feet up.
She’s putting her toes up.
retropath2 says
It’s what folk grasp when they are rising to the bard. Metal? Mettle? Nettle? Petal?
hubert rawlinson says
Grasp the pedal to stop the weal.
BryanD says
My old boss used to regularly tell us that “we need to change tact”.
Freddy Steady says
Meanwhile, Ronaldo is a Golden Spanner in the works.
fentonsteve says
The non-native Mrs F has just warned me about impending Storm Eunice:
“Battle down the hatches”.
Being far too polite/enjoying a cheap laugh at her expense, I won’t correct her.
H.P. Saucecraft says
I treasure my wife’s Thainglish, and sometimes adopt the phrases myself: “In my lone” for on my own, “in bicy-cun” for on bicycle, “very technology” (equally stressed syllables – tech-nol-o-geeee”) for anything computer-related, and so on.
Moose the Mooche says
“Very technology” is essentially “Vorsprung durch technik” – only in real words rather than in German, and therefore gooder.
Jeff says
A leper can’t change his socks.
Black Celebration says
Brilliant.
chiz says
Blimey it’s Jeff from the infamous ‘touched inappropriately’ thread. When did you get out?
Moose the Mooche says
He’s been biding his thyme.
Moose the Mooche says
Well, if you were to put me on the Spock…