In case you haven't heard, the State of Connecticut has struggled to negotiate its budget during the past few months. In fact, the process has resembled a can of worms being shot from a loose cannon in a sausage factory.
But no one knew that this street brawl would provide a spring torrent of delightful mixed metaphors — torturous figures of speech that mirror the zaniness of the legislative process itself.
After the budget was passed last week, one lawmaker told the Hartford Courant, "This budget is a series of bandaids that kick the can down the road."
Who knew that bandaids had such leg strength? Maybe they grew angry at the little tin cans they used to come in.
Not to be outdone, another legislator intoned, "No one promised a rose garden on this budget. There is no positive way to spin this deck of cards that we have been dealt."
Rose garden? Deck of cards? Sounds like the Queen's croquet party in "Alice in Wonderland," which, in fact, this legislative session mimicked.
Mixed metaphors arise when writers and speakers fuse two — or more! — unrelated comparisons or figures of speech. Reading or hearing them is like watching a bag of cats attacking the fox guarding the hen house.
Politicians and public officials are especially prone to mischievous mismatches.
One packed four metaphors into two sentences when he said that gay marriage "would open up a can of worms and a legal minefield about freedom, religion and equalities legislation. It may open up old wounds and put people into the trenches."
A naysayer on another issue took a more classical approach: "When you open up that Pandora's box, you will find it full of Trojan horses."
But it was former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who set the standard when he announced in 2013 that economic figures "are guideposts that tell you how we're going to be shifting the mix of our tools as we try to land this ship on a — in a smooth way onto the aircraft carrier."
Journalists, of course, can't resist getting in on the action. One recently wrote, "As the kimono slowly opens on the nouveau Trudeau Liberals, it's becoming quite apparent that what's supposedly new is just more stale bread in the Liberal political pantry."
Even great writers are not immune to the siren song of the forbidden apple. William Shakespeare's character Hamlet, for instance, wonders whether "to take arms against a sea of troubles."
Big enemy. Bring A LOT of weapons.
Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.
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