Right out of the bat
Posted: October 27, 2012 Filed under: ACTION, THINGS | Tags: baseball, blended idioms, expressions, malaphors, mixed idioms, off the bat, out of the box, words 2 CommentsThis is a mixture of “right out of the box” and “right off the bat”, both baseball metaphors and both meaning “first thing.” Thanks to John C. for passing this one along!
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Are you sure “right out of the box” is a baseball metaphor? In the sense of running out of the batter’s box towards first base, or …?
I always thought it had to do with consumer appliances/gadgets that are functional “right out of the box”
You may be right, Peter. I always thought it referred to a batter running to first base right out of the batter’s box, which is the immediate thing to do after hitting the ball.