He’s shooting from the seat of his pants

Posted: April 16, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Last week on the show Deadline: White House, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was talking about Trump and his reckless behavior. He then uttered this nice congruent conflation of “shooting from the hip” and “flying by the seat of (one’s) pants”, both meaning to act or speak impulsively without planning in advance. Can’t help but think “shitting (one’s) pants” (to be extremely frightened) might also have been on the speaker’s mind. Kudos to Steve Messinger for hearing this one and sending it in!

Take no quarter

Posted: April 13, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

This nice, subtle malaphor was uttered by Harry Litman, former US Attorney, on the MSNBC show Deadline: White House.  Mr. Litman was talking about the Southern District of New York and its toughness on criminal activity, specifically referring to Michael Cohen’s possible involvement in criminal actions.  It is a congruent conflation of “take no prisoners” and “give no quarter”, both meaning to show no mercy or compromise in pursuing one’s objectives.  “Taking” and “giving” often get mixed up, it seems, as it is difficult sometimes to understand why one word is used and not the other.  For example, the expression “I need to take a piss (or dump)” makes no sense to me as one is really “giving a piss (or dump)”, right?  Conversely, the phrase “I don’t give a hoot (shit)” about something makes more sense if you “don’t take a hoot (shit)”.  Word rant of the day.  A big thanks to “my ol’ pal” Beatrice Zablocki for giving a hoot about malaphors and spotting this one.