Tag: malapropism

Mar 02

Overheard: 45 year old female

“My niece, she ain’t slow or nothin’, like artistic.”

Jan 27

Like pulling hen’s teeth

That’s got to be the greatest mixed metaphor ever, a combination of “rare as hen’s teeth” and “like pulling teeth.” It’s kind of humorous, but I suppose it still could still be descriptive: not only is a task difficult, but it’s difficulty is now compounded by scarcity. The only direct application I can think of …

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Aug 25

Put your John Henry on this

One malaprop that drives me crazy is when people say, “Put your John Henry on this.” What they intend to say is, “Put your John Hancock on this.” This idiom comes from John Hancock, the last signer of the Declaration of Independence, who signed his name in a large, flourishing script. John Henry, however, is …

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