this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Like "does the Pope shit in the woods?" or "that train has sailed?"

Also, what good examples can you think of?

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[–] Redacted@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I thought "cakewalk" was a clever American amalgamation of "a piece of cake" and "a walk in the park".

Turns out it's actually related to slavery, so probably doesn't count.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago
[–] lolola@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

When referring to a difficult task: "That's a tough road to hold", or "a tough road to hoe", or "a tough road to [travel on]" or "a tough road to... [trails off awkwardly...]", or just "a tough road".

It's a tough row to hoe.

It's an agricultural metaphor. The row is a line of dirt in a field where you plant seeds. You use a hoe to dig the lines, remove weeds, and create little holes where you drop the seeds. Hoeing may be difficult if the soil is too hard or too full of rocks and weeds. Such a row would be a tough one to hoe.

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[–] Motorheadbanger@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I always liked "Hindsight is 50/50"

[–] Denjin@lemmings.world 3 points 2 months ago

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater else you'll end up with a wet, critically injured baby.

[–] Davel23@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago

I don't know about the "becomes commonplace" part, but mangled idioms are generally called "malapropisms".

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So, lots of examples, but not much on your question about terminology. In looking around a bit, I couldn't find a single specific term for a malapropism that "sticks," but you could fairly describe it as a form semantic drift driven by catachresis, thought the latter seems more common in literary criticism or philosophy than in linguistics.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

catachresis

Ha! Here you are answering the actual question but nobody cares!

Amazing. I had never seen this word before.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even then, I can't quite find a single Linguistics term for this phenomenon, where it becomes a thing of its own or even replaces the original. 'Eggcorn' and 'Malaphor' seem to be pretty decent casual terms.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Almost thought you'd done one yourself there with this "even then"! But I was thinking of even still (from even so). Which BTW is probably in my top 3 most hated malaphors or catachreses or whatever they are.

[–] DamienGramatacus@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I know these as eggcorns thanks to Adam & Joe... https://youtu.be/GyAWSnwBJLA?si=UXqG273L2lOxk05h

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Current pet peeve: "to step foot on". Facepalm! Just coz somebody misheard "set" doesn't make "step foot" grammatical. And yet here we are.

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