2019 Malaphor of the Year!

The countdown is over. It’s now time to reveal this year’s Malaphor of the Year.  But before I unveil this masterpiece, here are the winners of past years:

2015 – I have a pulse to the ground (Trumpaphor when he was on the campaign trail)

2016 – Let’s give them a round of hand! (submitted by Martin Pietrucha)

2017 – Welcome to my shoes (submitted by Steve Kovacs)

2018 – Whatever turns your boat (submitted by John Kooser)

This year’s winner combines an old and a new phrase, and just has a nice ring to it.  It was submitted last January by John Fischer.  Happy New Year!

My old car shit the bucket

Maggie Acker uttered this beauty when talking about her car that stopped running.  It is a congruent conflation of “kicked the bucket” and “shit the bed”, both idioms referring to something or someone that died or failed.  “Shit the bed” is a relatively new idiom (I found it in the Wiktionary – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shit_the_bed ).  It usually refers to something that breaks and can’t be repaired, like a cell phone.  Interestingly, in the U.K, it means to express surprise.  The mental mix up probably also was caused by the similar sounding words “kick” and “shit”.  A big, big thanks to John Fischer who heard this one and passed it on.