Re: CFFA Card memory cards on sale at Sears

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Frank Townsend wrote:

>"Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:61qkd.26129$Al3.18309@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com...
>>
>> "Greg Buchner" <apple22@mn.rr.com> wrote in message
>> news:apple22-3F234A.08175410112004@hermes-ge0.rdc->
>>
>> > James Coburn as Derek Flint as a James Bond knock-off...
>> >
>> > Greg B.
>>
>> Yah, I know who "Our Man Flint" is. He was talking about Playboy... so I
>> threw another adult reference back at him.
>
>The original expression was "in like Flynn" referring to Boss Flynn or
>perhaps Errol Flynn the actor.

It was Boss Flynn.  The idiom is originally politically derived, then
re-applied to Errol Flynn in the 1940s.  After Coburn's "In like Flint",
which was wordplay on the original, many people became confused,
substituting the wordplay for the original idiom.

<rant>

Thank you for pointing out the uncorrupted idiom.  It bugs me
when people get idioms wrong, or use them incorrectly, indicating
that they have not learned them.

One of my "favorite" misuses is to "hone in on" something.

Honing is sharpening, as in "honing a razor".  So one could
correctly say that they were "honing a proposal".

Homing is goal-seeking behavior, as in "homing pigeon".  So
another correct use is "homing in on the right answer".

Mixing the two by substituting "honing" for "homing" is just
one of dozens of fractured idioms that I hear more and more.

I find this kind of misuse about as jarring to my ear as the
"is is that" that is being misused frequently these days, or
the ever popular "nucular" instead of "nuclear".  (I sometimes
ask them if the spelling is "uncular" to them.  ;-)

A short list of idioms I hear fractured with regularity:

"a tough _road_ to hoe" instead of "row", as in gardening.

"the proof is in the _pudding_" instead of "the proof of the
pudding is in the eating".

"the whole _gambit_" instead of "gamut"--probably because
no one knows the meaning of _either_ word.  ;-)

"take a new _tact_" instead of "tack", a sailing term for a
changing course through the direction of the wind.

"_forward_ progress" (not really an idiom, but what distinction
is being made?  "Reverse" progress??)

..and, finally, another word-mangling that I actually kind of like:
"misconscrewed".  ;-)

</rant>

-michael

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