I’m sweating like a stuck pig

Who hasn’t said this malaphor before?  I know I am guilty.  It is a conflation of “sweating like a pig” (to sweat profusely) and “bleeding (or squealing) like a stuck pig” (to make a loud shrill sound).  I suppose a stuck pig sweats a lot, so perhaps this one should be accepted, but bleeding or squealing seems to be associated with a stuck pig, unless you’re the poor guy in Deliverance.  The submitter of this nice malaphor thought perhaps the proper simile was “sweat like a hog”, but I think he just had Vinnie Barbarino and the rest of the gang from Kotter’s remedial class on his mind.  “The Sweathogs” was the delightful name appropriated to that lovable gang at James Buchanan High School.  A big thanks to Steve Messinger who unintentionally uttered this very popular malaphor.

Not to beat a dead dog, but….

During the Johns Hopkins/Loyola lacrosse game, the sports commentator was not wanting to repeat an earlier observation but did anyhow and prefaced the remark with this malaphor.  It is a mash up of “don’t beat a dead horse” (don’t wasted time repeating or saying something that has already been attempted or said) and “let sleeping dogs lie” (leave something alone that may cause trouble).  Dogs and horses, and sleeping and dying  seem to get confused a lot.  Another example of this is “let dead dogs sleep”, one of my earliest malaphors, posted in January 2013.  https://malaphors.com/2013/01/02/let-dead-dogs-sleep/  A big thanks to Jim Kozlowski for hearing this one and passing it on!

Not to beat a dead dog, but if you haven’t read my book on malaphors, “He Smokes Like a Fish and other Malaphors”, you need to!  It’s available on Amazon.  Just click on this link:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692652205.  They’re flying like hotcakes!