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A rose is a rose by any other name

Posted: January 4, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This is a nice literary malaphor, uttered on the MSNBC show Hard Ball .  It is a congruent conflation of Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name” and  Gertrude Stein’s sentence “a rose is a rose is a rose”, both interpreted as meaning things are what they are.  A big thanks to Mike Kovacs for hearing this conflation of two famous lines in literature.

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The buck stops at the top

Posted: May 18, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
This is a companion to yesterday’s malaphor, “the fish rots from the top”.  Interestingly, this malaphor was heard on the same show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, regarding the same subject: discussion of a Trump official remarking about John McCain dying soon.  This one was spoken by Ginger Gibson, Reuters political correspondent.  It is a mashup of “the buck stops here” (taking full responsibility) and “top of the ladder (food chain)” (the position of most importance).  A big shout out to Beatrice Zablocki who heard this one and sent it in.

Hillary Clinton is in the process of refudiating everything that Mr. Trump says

Posted: September 19, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: WORD BLENDS | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

This nice word blend malaphor was uttered by Sean Jackson, chairman of the Florida Black Republican Caucus and Trump supporter, on MSNBC’s Hardball.  Mr. Jackson stated, “Hillary Clinton is in the process of refudiating everything that Mr. Trump says by trying to make him out to be the bigot.” See http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/hardball/2016-08-26

This is a mash up of “repudiating” (rejecting the validity or authority) and “refuting” (proving or saying that something is not true).   Word blend malaphors are an interesting subset of idiom blend malaphors.  There are quite a few posted on this website.  A shout out to Sam Edelmann who heard this one and passed it on!

If you liked this malaphor from the political world, you will want to get the book “He Smokes Like a Fish and other Malaphors”, available on Amazon!  There is a whole chapter devoted to mash ups from politics.

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