{"id":18339,"date":"2021-05-17T10:03:36","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T17:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/?p=18339"},"modified":"2021-05-17T10:04:53","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T17:04:53","slug":"malaphors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2021\/05\/17\/malaphors\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaphors"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>In response to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jed.hartman\/posts\/10213021521232646\">Facebook post of mine in 2017<\/a>, a friend introduced me to the word <i>malaphor<\/i>, which refers to a phrase that mixes two (or more) idioms.<\/p>\r\n<p>My post used the phrase \u201cThe devil\u2019s hands make light work.\u201d A couple of other examples that friends gave in comments:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>The road to hell wasn\u2019t built in a day.<\/li>\r\n  <li>When in doubt, do as the Romans do.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>Elliott Moreton calls this kind of thing a <i>recombinant idiom<\/i>, which on the one hand is more accurate (the items in question are often idioms rather than metaphors per se) but on the other hand isn\u2019t as punchy\/catchy to my ear. And the word <i>malaphor<\/i> also calls to (my) mind the word <i>malaprop<\/i>, which also seems appropriate.<\/p>\r\n<p>I\u2019ve been using the phrase <i>recombinant idiom<\/i> in Words & Stuff to refer to a wider range of items:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>Some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2009\/11\/29\/recombinant-idioms\/\">reworkings\/parodies of well-known phrases<\/a> in an article about Sarah Palin. These ones don\u2019t mix two idioms, though.<\/li>\r\n  <li>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2009\/12\/17\/another-recombinant-idiom\/\">phrase from <cite>TechCrunch<\/cite><\/a>: \"Don't shoot the gift horse that feeds you.\" (That one is a malaphor.)<\/li>\r\n  <li>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2012\/07\/06\/recombinant-metaphors-smoking\/\">a smoking duck that walks and quacks like the Higgs<\/a>.\u201d<\/li>\r\n  <li>A discussion of the phrase <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2012\/09\/01\/laser-sharp\/\">laser sharp<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n  <li>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2014\/07\/24\/more-recombinant-idioms\/\">post<\/a> that includes some <cite>Dr. Who<\/cite> quotes and some recombinant idioms collected by Elliott (mostly from news articles). Also notes that this sort of phrase is also known as a <i>dundrearyism<\/i>.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2019\/11\/05\/opinions\/\">Opinions are like wishes<\/a>\u2026\u201d<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>It turns out that there\u2019s at least one website devoted to malaphors: <a href=\"https:\/\/malaphors.com\">malaphors.com<\/a>. Their slogan: \u201cIt\u2019s the cream of the cake!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>A few of their recent posts:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li><a href=\"https:\/\/malaphors.com\/2021\/05\/17\/keep-a-pulse-on-that\/\">Keep a pulse on that<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n  <li><a href=\"https:\/\/malaphors.com\/2021\/05\/14\/lets-get-this-show-rolling\/\">Let\u2019s get this show rolling<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n  <li><a href=\"https:\/\/malaphors.com\/2021\/05\/12\/cross-bases\/\">Cross bases<\/a>.<\/li>\r\n  <li><a href=\"https:\/\/malaphors.com\/2021\/05\/10\/hes-way-in-over-his-skis\/\">He\u2019s way in over his skis<\/a>. (I especially like that one.)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>I had assumed that <i>malaphor<\/i> was a new word, but that site says \u201cIt is believed that the term was first coined by Lawrence Harrison, a government official in the Agency for International Development, in an op-ed piece for the <cite>Washington Post<\/cite> in 1976.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>A web search also led me to <a href=\"https:\/\/docforce.io\/big-list-malaphors\/\">another list<\/a>, which includes some that I particularly like, such as \u201cHe has a bee in his belfry.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-idioms","category-metaphors"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18339"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18342,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18339\/revisions\/18342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}