Catch this in the bud
Posted: August 7, 2012 Filed under: ACTION, THINGS | Tags: bird, blended idioms, bud, catch, expressions, malaphors, mixed idioms, nip, words 1 CommentThis malaphor of course involves the idiom “nip it in the bud” (preventing something bad from happening), but what is the other idiom being blended? At first blush it would seem to be “catch this” (seeing or listening to something) but I suspect the speaker mixed “the early bird catches the worm” (success comes to the earliest) with “nip it in the bud” as they both describe preemptive or proactive actions.
Malaphors 
“Catch this early” or “Catch this before it spreads” meaning attack a problem before it’s too late. This means about the same thing as “nip it in the bud.”