I’ve been collecting mixed metaphors for a while now and my all time favorite is still “It’s not rocket surgery” but I now have a close runner up. It’s “you can’t kick a gift horse in the mouth” and if I told you what terrible reality TV show it came from I would loose all your respect. Ok, it was the Real Housewives of New York.
Here are some more….
I got by with the skin of my chin!
which is a mix of
I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
and
Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.
Turns out that my metaphores are not mixed, they are just wrong, but funny….
I put his feet in the fire.
He’s a cheap scape.
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My friend Laurel came up with these.
You hit the nose on the nail.
Two heads are better than two in the bush.
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Mixed Metaphors
From Richard Lederer, Fractured English
I wouldn’t be caught dead in that movie with a ten-foot pole.
The sacred cows have come home to roost with a vengeance.
Milwaukee is the golden egg that the rest of the state wants to milk.
She’ll get it by hook or ladder.
The banker’s pockets are bulging with the sweat of the honest working man.
That’s a very hard blow to swallow.
These hemorrhoids are a real pain in the neck.
That snake in the grass is barking up the wrong tree.
When we get to that bridge, we’ll jump.
Don’t sit there like a sore thumb.
At this advanced stage, the United States, can fine-tune the end game.
The idea was hatched two years ago, but it didn’t catch fire until two months ago, when the co-directors jumped in feet first. Since then, things have really been snowballing for the trio.
Everyone whose ox has been gored is going to be squealing.
It’s time to swallow the bullet.
It’s time to grab the bull by the tail and look it in the eye.
Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening in the sky, but I’ll nip him in the bud.
You are out of your rocker.
Flexibility is one of the cornerstones of program budgeting.
The budget deficit is an albatross we carry on our back.
I favor this irrigation bill in order that we may turn the barren hills of my state into fruitful valleys.
The sword of Damocles is hanging over Pandora’s Box.
It’s as easy as falling off a piece of cake.
I’m not going to be side-tracked into a tangent.
Here’s the crutch of the matter.
I was so surprised you could have knocked me over with a fender.
Let dead dogs sleep.
Stop beating a dead horse to death.
She was a diva of such immense talent that, after hearing her perform, there was seldom a dry seat in the house.
Water hazards on this tricky course have been the stumbling block for many a golfer.
I’d like to have been an eardropper on the wall.
The promotion was a real plum in his hat.
It’s difficult living in a bowl of fish.
Regret to inform you that the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket.
Even members of the press have gone out of their way to rub in the bitter pill.
They are really riding a tiger by the tail.
He’s like a duck out of water.
From now on, I’m watching everything you do with a fine-tuned comb.
That guy’s out to butter his own nest.
I would not have gone in there over my dead body.
Many cities and towns have community gardening programs that need a little more help to get off the ground.
He threw a wet towel on the meeting.
That was a low blow between the belt.
The press bends overboard to be fair.
If the Board had done its homework, it would not have jumped on this political bandwagon and dug itself a bottomless pit.
