Spinning
From the news: “another head-turning personnel pick.” No. Make that “another head-spinning personnel pick.”
Reaping the worldwind?
“The events in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are part of their worldwind tour of several key battleground states over the next few days.”
Some Mondays
A few citations for dark Mondays.
“Mondays are dark”
Obviously, I have not spent enough of my life among show people.
Seeing and smelling
“The judge was smart enough to smell a rat when she saw it”: Representative Tom Tiffany (WI-35), mangling an old idiom at the Merrick Gatland show trial just now.
Mats and mattresses
Going to the mat, going to the mattresses: what’s the difference?
Flight need
“Does the system need repaired and upgraded?”
Looking for trouble
“I don’t go looking for trouble. It finds me.” How far back does this kind of phrasing go?
Masonic [need + past participle]
“His hair needed cut”: so says a witness in the Perry Mason episode “The Case of the Wrathful Wraith” (November 7, 1965).
Carrot and stick
That’s What They Say (Michigan Radio) has the idiom covered.
“Folks on the ground”
MSNBC has commentators in Wisconsin today awaiting results in the state’s primary elections. They have been talking to “folks on the ground.” As opposed to — ?
A petard
A nice way to illustrate the idea of poetic justice. Also the idea of being hoist with one’s own petard.
Humble crow
A guest on the PBS NewsHour just now: “That’s why I’m eating humble crow this afternoon.”
Dustin desserts
Hayden: “I have to write a paper about the use of idioms.” Ed: “Oh, that’ll be a piece of cake.”
Hill, Sam
Today, as I strode a main aisle in our friendly neighborhood multinational retailer, an older fellow asked me, “Do you know where in the Sam Hill the mouthwash is?”
Idiom of the day: clever clogs
“Edmund Elephant is a clever clogs.”
Idiom of the day: soup up
A clue in yesterday’s Newsday crossword — five letters, “Jazzes (up)” — prompted me to (finally) write a post about “soup up.”
Idiom of the day: hurrah’s nest
“This is a hurrah’s nest, and the sooner it’s dumped on the district attorney’s desk, the better I like it.”
Idiom of the day: seat-of-the-pants
The origin is surprising to me.
“What?”
“Giving you a wide berth, son!” I shouted.
Idiom of the day: go to pot
Elaine and I wondered about the pot in go to pot . We had three guesses between us: a chamber pot, a cooking pot, and a pot for a plant.
Recently updated
Another instance of “close enough for jazz.”
“Close enough for jazz”
Jonathan Turley should play with his Goldendoodle and leave music to the musicians.
A [need past participle] day
It needs posted.
“Coming in hot”
I had to ask: is that a midwesternism? A downstate Illinoism?
“I take your question”
Robert Mueller’s “I take your question” is the most gentlemanly “Go fuck yourself” I’ve ever heard.
Idiomatic nickels
An idiom in Zits.
A good skate
I had to look it up.
Out to the meadow with Tom Waits
Tom Waits putting on an interviewer, I think.
The tiny-house reach
“It makes me feel like I can reach from the toilet to the fridge!”