Fresh off the heels

A former couple were forced to inteact with each other soon after breaking up. The contributor’s wife said that they were fresh off the heels of their breakup. This is a mashup of “hot on the heels of” (to follow something closely) and “fresh off of/fresh out of” (immediately following a phase in one’s life, e.g. “fresh out of college”). Props to Peter H. for hearing this one and sending it in!

Good to know you are not on death’s bed

This is another one overheard in a conversation. It is a congruent conflation of “at death’s door” and “on your death bed”, both describing someone very close to dying.

The origin of “on death’s door” goes back to the 1300s.

So! during the middle ages and beyond it was considered bad luck to take the corpse from a house using the main entrance. Seriously ill people or the recently departed were laid out in the front parlour. From here, there was a smaller door next to the front door that led into the street. It was through this which the dead person in their coffin could be passed.

Death’s door

These doors of the dead are easy to recognise as they are only half doors and were built with a stone ledge to support the coffin as it was removed from the house. The body could be balanced here while everything was made ready for their last journey.:

A big thank you to Martin Pietrucha for hearing this one and sending it in!

Get your head out of the gutter

This was overheard in a conversation. It’s a mashup of “get your mind out of the gutter” (stop interpreting things in an obscene way) and “get your head out of your ass/the sand” (start paying more attention to what’s going on around you). A big thank you to Martin Pietrucha for hearing this one and sending it in!

When the shit hits the bed

An employee was talking about an acquistion of a piece of equipment to displace an unreliable vendor. The speaker meant to say “when the shit hits the fan” but brought “bed” into the conversation. This is a mashup of “when the shit hits the fan” (a situation suddenly causes a lot of trouble for someone) and “he shit the bed” (to fail or completely mess up in a situation). It’s pretty obvious what word caused the mental mixup. This one reminds me of one of the Malaphors of the Year, “my old car shit the bucket”. https://malaphors.com/2019/01/18/my-old-car-shit-the-bucket/ A big thank you to Sandor Kovacs for hearing this one and sending it in.