Language abuse…very mixed metaphors

A metaphor is a direct comparison, such as the second line of the poem, The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes: “The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.”  If he’d said “The moon was like a ghostly galleon”, it would have been a simile.

Metaphors are quite useful, but when they get mixed, things get a bit, well, mixed up!  Just take a look at these gems, courtesy of Anguished English.

The sacred cows have come home to roost with a vengeance.  (I hope they have a very sturdy perch and please do NOT stand underneath it!!)

The slowdown  is accelerating.

The Sword of Damocles is hanging over Pandora’s Box.

Let dead dogs sleep.

She was a diva of such immense talent that, after hearing her perform, there was seldom a dry seat in the house.   (I can’t really comment on that one.)

Let’s hope Steve Carleton gets his curve ball straightened out.  (Perhaps Yogi was catching for this one.)

It’s difficult living in a bowl of fish.  (Unless of course you’re a fish.)

That guy’s out to butter his own nest. (Slick!)

I’m sticking my neck out on a limb.  (Ouch!!)

He was a very astute politician with both ears glued to the ground.  (Ouch again!)

The banker’s pockets are bulging with the sweat of the honest working man. (Yuk!)

Richard Lederer (again in Anguished English) points out that even Ian Fleming mixed a cocktail of metaphors at least once (shaken, though, not stirred) when he wrote: “Bond’s knees, the Achilles heel of all skiers, were beginning to ache.”  So if you happen to mangle a metaphor or three (or would that make it a meta-four?), you’re in good company.

Language abuse…accident(al) bloopers

It’s Tuesday and after a foray into the world of superior words (did anyone use one of the words) last week, we’re back to a selection from Anguished English.  Last week, I came across my copy of More Anguished English, so we should be set for some time.  🙂  Hopefully that news elicits joyful sounds, not anguished ones!

The following jewels are from insurance reports, where drivers were asked to report their incidents in the fewest words possible.  In many cases, the extra words would have been worth it!

Possibly an unsolvable hit-and-run!

An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.

I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.

Persistence pays off in these next two.

The pedestrian ran for the pavement, but I got him.

The guy was all over the road.  I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.

I was thrown from my car as it left the road.  I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.

Not something you see every day!!

The accident happened when the right front door of a car came around the corner without giving a signal.

My car sustained no damage whatsoever and the other car somewhat less.

I would have loved to have seen this one.  It gives the term “footloose” an entirely different meaning!

One wheel went into the ditch.  My foot jumped from brake to accelerator, leaped across the road to the other side, and jumped into the trunk of a tree.

I’m surprised this didn’t happen soon!!  I’ve driven 16 hours a time, but never 40 years!

I had been driving for about 40 years, when I fell sleep at the wheel and had an accident.

This might be my favorite, at least if I don’t read over all the rest. I’m left wondering which of them had the rear end trouble, but not at all  amazed that you’d have an accident if your universal joint gave way!  I must have forgotten that part from my anatomy class.

I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way, causing me to have an accident.

May you have an uneventful week, with no rear end or universal joint problems!

Disclaimer:  As usual on a Tuesday (and Wednesday), I have to work all day, so excuse any lateness getting to your blog post. It’s not that I don’t want to get there, it’s sometimes that I just don’t have time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Language abuse…It’s a sign.

I’m writing this on Monday afternoon with chicken stock simmering on the stove, something to combat the cold outside.  I exercised this morning, both on the treadmill and on the weight machines, but now I’m going to exercise my laughing muscles.  You’re welcome to give yours a workout as well.

As usual, at least so far, all examples are from Richard Lederer’s manual on how misuse of the English language can make us laugh, Anguished English.  Have any of you picked up a copy either at the library or bookstore since you started reading the Language Abuse posts?  I hope at least a few of you have enjoyed them enough to do so.  But now, without further ado or even much ado about nothing, let’s take a look at signs that might give a rather different impression to the reader than was expected by the creator of the sign.

In a New York restaurant:  Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager.

Language abuse: Goldwynisms

Sam Goldwyn, legendary movie producer, was known for more than just his movies.  He was also know for his mangling of English, as shown by a few of the examples from Anguished English.  Ready?  Roll ’em.

A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

I’ll give you a definite maybe.

Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

I never like you and I always will.

When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you.

Let’s have some new clichés.

A bachelor’s life is no life for a single man.

Our comedies are not to be laughed at.

I never put on a pair of shoes until I’ve worn them five years.

I may not always be right, but I’m never wrong.

 

 

Language abuse…order matters

It’s Tuesday, so it must be time for a language abuse post.  Today is all about modifiers that aren’t placed in the right place, thus conveying rather different meanings than the writers intended, more fun from Richard Lederer’s Anguished English.  Hang on, because here we go.

No one was injured in the blast, which was attributed to a buildup of gas by one town official.

Yoko Ono will talk about her husband, John Lennon, who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters.

Plunging 1,000 feet into the gorge, we saw Yosemite Falls.

CALF BORN TO FARMER WITH TWO HEADS.

Two cars were reported stolen by the Groveton police yesterday.

After years of being lost under a pile of dust, Chester D. Thatcher III found all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club at the Bangor House.

Do not sit in chair without being fully assembled.

Here are some suggestions for handling obscene phone calls from New England Telephone Company.

The judge sentenced the killer to die in the electric chair for the second tie.

Language abuse…historic bloopers, part 2

Are your ready for some more fractured history?  We’ll start with the Middle Ages, when everyone was middle-aged,  and end with Shakespeare and his contemporaries.  Thanks again to Richard Lederer and his hilarious book, Anguished English.  As I’m mentioned before, he has a number of other books that will keep you laughing.  Pick one up and tell me if I’m wrong…if you’re able to get the words out while giggling.

Warning!!  Do NOT consume hot beverages or even food while reading unless prepared to do laundry and clean up your surroundings.  You have been warned!!

*******************************

Then came the Middle Ages, when everyone was middle aged. King Alfred conquered the Dames. King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery with brave knights on prancing horses and beautiful women. King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings.

Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw. And victims of the blue-bonnet plague brew boobs on their necks.  Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

Language abuse…historic bloopers, part 1

I’m a history buff, so this mash-up of student bloopers makes me laugh until I cry.  I don’t know if you’ll cry, but I’m quite sure you’ll laugh, possibly out loud.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORLD

‘The World According to Student Bloopers’

by Richard Lederer

One of the fringe benefits of being an English or History teacher is receiving the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together the following “history” of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers collected by teachers through the U.S., from eighth grade through college. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.

The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies, and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation.

Language abuse: lost in translation

You’ve survived Monday, so let me reward you with some good laughs for Tuesday.  For that, we’re back to Richard Lederer’s Anguished English for examples of signs in other countries that are written in English.  However, their messages are more than a bit mixed or maybe muffed.  I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite.  Which is yours?

In a Bangkok dry cleaner’s:  Drop your trousers here for best results.

Language abuse: spelling misteaks

Spelling is often abused, not always with humorous outcomes, although auto correct has its moments.  However, these spelling bloopers might, to quote a famous rock group, “make a grown man cry.”  I suppose now it should read “make a grown person cry”, but as they say: “Whatever!”

1. The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
2. Vestal virgins were pure and chased.
3. In Pittsburgh they manufacture iron and steal.  (Dan, is that true???)
4. They gave William IV a lovely funeral.  It took six men to carry the beer.  (Seems like “Dilly, dilly” should be the response.)
5. To celebrate at feasts, the inhabitants of old England sometimes cut the head off the biggest bore and carried it around on a platter.
6. Carats, 2 for 39 cents.
7. Please leave your umbrella and goulashes here.  (Is that cultural appropriation?)
8. She had a seizure–her third one–and she fell and went unconscious.  She was in a comma and she never woke up.
9. Editors and Proff Readers–Must be good in spelling and grammar.  (We can see why!)
10. Mr. and Mrs. Garth Robinson request the honor of your presents at the marriage of their daughter Holly to Mr. James Stockman.  (That’s why you invite 300 of your closest friends, right?)

Again, all from Anguished English, by Richard Lederer.  Please, if you don’t buy it, at  least check it out (literally as well as figuratively) from the library!

 

Language abuse: bienapropisms

What on earth is a bienapropism??  Richard Lederer says that “The best malapropisms are those that leap across the chasm of absurdity and land on the side of truth” and dubs them bienapropisms, in the spirit of the French roots.  My interpretation?  Bien (good) + appropriate + malapropism = lots of fun!!  Here are some examples, again from Anguished English.  Read ’em and weep.

1. The cookbook is being compiled.  Please submit your favorite recipe and a short antidote concerning it.
2. We sold our house and moved into one of those pandemoniums.
3. To be a leader, you have to develop a spear de corps.
4. Senators are chosen as committee chairmen on the basis of senility.
5. The hills were worn down by eroticism.
6. Apartheid is a pigment of the imagination.
7. Certainly the pleasures of youth are great, but they are nothing compared to the pleasures of adultery.
8. The defendant pleaded exterminating circumstances.
9. Finally, this one that we’ve used for fun in our family for years:  It’s a fragment of your imagination.

Happy Tuesday!