Definition:
A succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "That's awfully thin gruel for the right wing to hang their hats on."
(MSNBC, Sep. 3, 2009) - "Her saucer-eyes narrow to a gimlet stare and she lets Mr. Clarke have it with both barrels."
(Anne McElvoy, London Evening Standard, Sep. 9, 2009) - "The committee was tired of stoking public outrage with fortnightly gobbets of scandal. It decided to publish everything it had left, warts and all. Now everyone is tarred with the same ugly brush, and the myth that forever simmers in the public consciousness--that the House shelters 435 parasitic, fat-cat deadbeats--has received another shot of adrenalin."
(Washington Post, 1992) - "I knew enough to realize that the alligators were in the swamp and that it was time to circle the wagons."
(Rush Limbaugh) - "A lot of success early in life can be a real liability--if you buy into it. Brass rings keep getting suspended higher and higher as you grow older. And when you grab them, they have a way of turning into dust in your hands. Psychologists ... have all kinds of words for this, but the women I know seem to experience it as living life with a gun pointed to their heads. Every day brings a new minefield of incipient failure: the too-tight pants, the peeling wallpaper, the unbrilliant career."
(Judith Warner, The New York Times, April 6, 2007) - "Sir, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud."
(attributed to Sir Boyle Roche, 1736-1807) - "I am tempted to believe that the indiscriminate condemnation of mixed metaphors arises more often from pedantry than from common sense."
(Edward Everett Hale, Jr. Constructive Rhetoric, 1896)
Also Known As: mixaphor
