There’s other fish in the barrel
Posted: July 14, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: expressions, humor, language, malaphors, mixed idioms, The Wire, words 1 CommentThis one was heard in episode 1, Season 3 of the best television series of all time, The Wire. Lieutenant Daniels is telling a disappointed Officer McNulty (who isn’t able to get the bad guy he really wants to get): “There’s other fish in the barrel.” Regarding whether this was intentional, since it was a serious scene, I’m going to rule that it was unintentional. This is a conflation of “other fish in the sea” (other excellent people, things, or possibilities in the world that one may find) and “like shooting fish in a barrel” (ridiculously easy). Props (Proposition Joe?) to Barry Eigen for hearing this one and sending it in.

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