Out with the old

The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
~Alan Perlis

a sketch of a petard, such as one might get hoist by
which is an expression I like & don't want to replace, tbh

A rambling discussion of how my brain works awaits you. (I would bail now!) When I was growing up, I read a lot of British books. Between that and my father's extensive vocabulary, I ended up with kind of a weird lexicon for an American kid. What I wanted to talk about today, though, was how my grandfather's sayings stuck. I must have heard them at an early or impressionable age because they are wedged in tight.

This morning I found myself being glad that, although it was raining, it wasn't as hard as a cow p*ssing on a flat rock, and I thought, "Darn you, Granddaddy!"

His expressions at mealtime come to mind when I've eaten a lot. His "I'm fit to pop" is fine, but "I'm full as a tick" admittedly has an element of "ugh."

The saying that I've particularly tried to get rid of is "cold as a witch's titty." Did that get passed down from colonial Puritans? What the heck? I have tried to replace it with "cold as a polar bear's nose" with some success.

How does this relate to Poetry Friday? We're always looking for fresh comparisons.

Matthew Baldwin collected new expressions for a "Cliche Rotation Project." Some of my favorites were:

Replace "It's a win-win situation" with "Everyone gets ice cream!"
Replace "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" with "We'll chop that tomato when the salsa runs out."
Replace "Reinvent the wheel" with "Start a whole new batch of sourdough."

(Apparently I particularly like the food ones.)
(None of the list were for expressions my grandfather used.)

The Morning News did a Non-Expert’s Contest for Total Idioms to come up with original idioms. The winner was "If A Bird Can't Fly, It Walks," meaning that there's no real excuse not to do what you can.

The Poetry Object has exercise worksheets for Overcoming Clichés and Using Specific Imagery that look helpful for teachers and others.

I have to include a poem! Here's one by Mac Hammond that takes a fresh look at an old subject:

Once upon a Time There Was a Man
by Mac Hammond

Once upon a time there was, there was a man
Who lived inside me wearing this cold armour,
The kind of knight of whom the ladies could be proud
And send with favours through unlikely forests
To fight infidels and other knights and ordinary dragons.
Once upon a time he galloped over deep green moats...

read the rest here

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Elizabeth Steinglass has the Poetry Friday round-up today. Thanks, Liz!