2020 Malaphor of the Year – Number 6

2020 has been an unusual year, but the Malaphor of the Year countdown tradition continues.  This year has been a great one for idiom mashups. In the past, I have narrowed the nominations down to five, but this year the competition was so stiff that I added a sixth nomination.  So without further ado (drum roll please), let the countdown begin with Number 6:

Trump’s going to eat him apart (submitted May 2020)

As you can imagine, the election was fertile ground for malaphors. This one involved two people talking about the upcoming 2020 presidential debates between Trump and Joe Biden. One person said of Trump: “Trump’s going to eat him apart….”  This is a nice congruent conflation of “eat him alive” and “tear him apart”, both meaning to overwhelm and defeat or dominate another.  “Eat his lunch” might also be in the mix, as it has the same meaning as the conflated idioms.  My guess is that Biden might be a little tough to chew.  A big thank you to Verbatim for sending Number 6 in!