You Hit the Nail Right on Your Head
English (ab)usage in the Internet age
Ah, but a man’s screech should precede his gasp, or what’s a metaphor?
— Robert Frowning
I n his 1775 comedy of manners The Rivals, the Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan created a memorable character named Mrs. Malaprop, the guardian aunt of the play’s winsome heroine Lydia Languish. The name comes from the French phrase mal à propos, meaning “off the subject” (literally, “badly to the purpose”). Mrs. Malaprop continually misuses words that sound similar to, but aren’t really what she means to say, such as “I have laid Sir Anthony’s preposition (proposition) before her,” and “Illiterate (obliterate) him from your memory,” and “She might reprehend (comprehend) the true meaning of what they are saying.” You can find similar examples uttered by the comic police constable Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
But you don’t have to go back to Elizabethan or Enlightenment stage drama to find examples galore of such malapropisms. All you have to do is spend some time reading Medium or any other social media platform. People are forever reaching for a word or phrase they think they understand and mistakenly grabbing the wrong item from the shelf. Sometimes it’s just a single word, like libel (published defamation of someone’s character) for liable (legally responsible), or renumeration (counting or numbering again) instead of remuneration (monetary payment). But my favorites are those based on a metaphor or figure of speech that the writer has heard somewhere but doesn’t understand or hasn’t really thought about, like “You hit it right on the nail” when they really mean “You hit the nail right on the head.” I’ve seen that one rendered as “You put the nail on the head” or even, as in my article title, “You hit the nail right on your head.” Clearly the writer didn’t understand the metaphor, or at least didn’t bother visualizing it (something you should always do before deploying a metaphor).
As a (now retired) professional writer and editor, I’ve been collecting these specimens for years. My wife says I suffer from attention surplus disorder, and I can’t really dispute the diagnosis. Anyway, here’s a small sampling from my collection.
The proof is in the pudding
This one is everywhere; you’ll see or hear it several times a week. To prove originally meant to test something, not (as we use it nowadays) to demonstrate its truth. You can’t tell how good a pudding is just by looking at it or smelling it; you have to put it in your mouth. So the proof (test) of the pudding is in the eating. Why would you want to bake the evidence into a dessert?
It fell between the cracks
If you drop a bag of coins on a wooden floor, some of them may fall through between the floorboards. The coins that fall between the cracks are salvaged; the ones that get lost are the ones that fall through the cracks.
It took the sails out of him
It took the wind out of his sails, like a ship becalmed at sea.
Keeping a pulse on it
You check someone’s heartbeat with a finger on their pulse. “Keeping a pulse on” something doesn’t mean anything at all.
I had a pit in my stomach
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I don’t think we have yet to see
Something that hasn’t happened yet has yet to happen. What this writer meant to say was either “I think we have yet to see” or “I don’t think we have yet seen.” If we haven’t yet to see something, then we’ve already seen it.
A hot water heater
If the water is hot, why do you need to heat it? It’s cold water that needs heating. That contraption in your basement is just a plain old water heater.
Statue of limitations
The statute of limitations limits the time for which a person can be charged with a crime they committed in the past. It’s a statute (a law enacted by the legislature), not a piece of sculpture. What would a statue of a limitation look like?
Putting the car before the horse
A horse draws a cart, not a car. Doing something the wrong way around is putting the cart before (in front of) the horse rather than behind where it belongs. Why would you hitch a horse to a car?
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander
Whether you’ve roasted a (female) goose or a (male) gander, you can serve them both with the same condiments. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. “Good for the goose” misses the point of the metaphor.
He burnished his weapon
He brandished his weapon (waved it in threat or anger). To burnish is to shine or polish.
One foul swoop
Fell is a somewhat archaic adjective meaning fierce or cruel. We know it today mainly in the cliché phrase one fell swoop, describing the sudden, deadly strike of a bird of prey such as a hawk or eagle. The phrase comes originally from Shakespeare, when Macduff, the Thane of Fife, learns that his wife and children have been murdered at the command of his enemy, Macbeth: “What! All my pretty chickens and their dam [mother], at one fell swoop?” ’Twas a foul act indeed, but that’s not how the metaphor goes.
He put the peddle to the meddle
To peddle is to sell something; to meddle is to interfere in matters that don’t concern you. A driver maximizes his speed by putting the pedal to the metal, pressing the accelerator down as far as it can go.
It falls within the government’s penundrum
A rare quadruple mash-up. There is no such word as penundrum. I’m guessing the writer probably meant “within the government’s purview (scope of influence or concern).” A conundrum is a riddle. A penumbra is a half-shadow. A panjandrum is a pompous, self-important petty official.
His explanation didn’t pass water
I love this one. In the military, to muster troops is to assemble them, such as for inspection; a soldier whose uniform, weapon, or equipment is not in proper condition doesn’t pass muster. An implausible explanation is like a bucket with a hole in it: it doesn’t hold water. To pass water is to urinate.
It just adds fire to the case
It adds fuel to the fire.
It exasperates the problem
It exacerbates the problem (makes it more acerbic, or bitter). To exasperate someone is to irritate or frustrate them; you exasperate a person, not a thing. I find some of these usage errors exasperating; seeing them published in print just exacerbates my irritation.
An economic recovery can lift all tides
A rising tide lifts all boats. The moon lifts the tide; the tide lifts the boats.
They swept it under the table
You hide the dirt on your floor by sweeping it under the rug, hoping no one will notice it. Just sweeping it under the table leaves it still exposed to view. Outlasting someone in a drinking bout is drinking them under the table.
Fettering away the time
To waste time in idle pursuits is to fritter it away. To fetter someone is to lock them in chains or manacles.
He tampered down his rhetoric
He tempered his rhetoric (balanced it, made it more temperate, moderated its temperature). To tamper with something is to maliciously manipulate or interfere with it. To tamp down is to compress a powdered or granulated substance by pounding it flat.
The president has his hand on the till
The tiller is the handle you use to steer a boat by turning the rudder; the steersman keeps his hand on the tiller. The till is the drawer in a cash register where you keep the cash. We have, admittedly, seen examples of presidents putting their hand in the till, but that’s probably not what this writer meant.
They kicked it down the can
They avoided the issue by kicking the can down the road.
That’s a load of crock
It’s a load or a crock (a pot or jar) of shit.
He left himself venerable
He left himself vulnerable (exposed to danger or harm). Incidentally, there’s an l in there; it’s vulnerable, not “vunnerable.” Venerable means old and worthy of respect, like me.
That’s enough for now. (There was more foolery yet, if I could but remember.…) Oh, and that cryptic-looking epigraph (not “epigram”) I used up at the head of this article? In case you didn’t recognize it, it’s an allusion to a line from the poem Andrea del Sarto, by Robert Browning:
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?
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“You Hit the Nail Right on Your Head” by Stephen Chernicoff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
