I’m gonna want to pick your ear on this

On a conference call involving a complex topic, one of the attendees did not fully understand. He then said to the subject matter expert, “I need to connect with you next week, and I’m gonna want to pick your ear on this”. This is a conflation of “pick (one’s) brain” (ask one questions to obtain detailed information or advice) and “bend (one’s) ear” (to talk to someone for a long time, usually causing them to be annoyed). I can’t help but think that when the speaker said “pick” the idiom “prick up (one’s) ears” (to pay sudden close attention to something) came to mind, creating the jumble. Also, the ear and the brain are in close proximity so it may have been a visual mixup as well.

Caution: ear picking may pose health hazards to the human ear. Please be careful out there.

A big thanks to Andy Jacobs for hearing this one and sending it in!