JFK was a duck in a barrel
Posted: November 30, 2013 Filed under: ACTION, ANIMALS, duck, shoot | Tags: Assassination, Assassination of John F. Kennedy, blended idioms, humor, John F. Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, language, malaphors, mixed idioms, shooting fish in a barrel, sitting duck, words 3 Comments
Picture of President Kennedy in the limousine in Dallas, Texas, on Main Street, minutes before the assassination. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This phrase mixes “sitting duck” (someone vulnerable to an attack) and “shooting fish in a barrel” (ridiculously easy). A big thanks to Michael Ameel for hearing this one on a radio program recently about the Kennedy assassination. An expert on the show indicated that JFK was an easy target, and blurted out this malaphor. It is similar to the 1/16/13 entry, “It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel”.
It’s like shooting ducks in a barrel
Posted: January 16, 2013 Filed under: ACTION, ANIMALS, barrel, duck, shoot, THINGS | Tags: blended idioms, ducks, ducks all in a row, expressions, fish, malaphors, mixed idioms, shooting fish in a barrel, wordplay, words 2 CommentsThis is a mash up of “shooting fish in a barrel” (easy action with guaranteed success) and “all your ducks in a row” (getting everything in order), submitted by a loyal follower, the TruroTattler. Given the enormous amount of google hits, this is a common malaphor, as ducks appear to be as easy a target as fish. Also shooting mechanical ducks in a penny arcade shooting gallery is certainly playing on the mind in this one.
Malaphors 
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