Today is something I find quite entertaining, but I have to thank Rachel for this one because she alerted me to the concept of a malaphor by her friend Jamie. A malaphor is a mix of a metaphor and a malapropism, and it's when you mix up your idioms and you come up with something a little bit odd, so, for example, if you wanted to comment on the untrustworthiness of somebody, instead of saying "I couldn't trust him as far as could throw him", you cross this with, "I wouldn't touch him with a bargepole", and you have "I wouldn't trust him with bargepole". Those sort of thing are incredibly common and if you track Oxford's databases, you will find they are eventually catching up with the real versions, if you like, and may-may some day overtake them, so I thought I would give you some of our favourite malaphors. One of the most common is, "We'ii burn that bridge, when we come to it", which make a lot of scense. That's a whole new kettle of worms". "I'm walking on tenterhooks". "Put your best face forward", which I like. "Untill cows freeze over". "That's no shirt off my nose". And, "It's a walk in the cake", which is quite sweet. And possibly my favourite, which I genuenely heard somebody say, and it was a real compliment, talking about another person, they said, "He is a minefield of infirmation". Those are malaphors.
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