Saturday, September 23, 2006

Myth and mixed metaphors

In this morning's paper:

Wildcats chip away at Trojans' Achilles heel
There are so many ways in which this high-school football headline goes wrong. Wildcats don't use chisels. (Gnaw, though gruesome, would be an apt metaphor.) The body part in question is the Achilles' heel. And there's an unintentional (I think it's unintentional, given the rest of headline) comedy in the idea of the Trojans, their city ultimately destroyed by Achilles' fellow Achaeans, having an Achilles' heel.

This headline, as we would say in the heartland, "needs revised."

comments: 2

Anonymous said...

And here's one that broke us all up at a staff meeting:

" that they don't have to deal with the 88 kinds of sh*t nipping at their heels."

Someone said later, "Does it really have precisely 88 kinds?"

And someone else said, "And it apparently has teeth."

A very unusual meeting, to say the least.

Michael Leddy said...

That sounds like my kind of meeting.