Mangled tangles

LITTLE ROCK — I approach language like that judge who said he couldn’t define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it.

The point being: I don’t know the rules, but I know what I like. One linguistic error that catches my ears, that sticks out like a sore tongue, that is as plain as the nose on my face, is a mangled cliche.

A malaprop is defined as “the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar.” Combine that with an everyday cliche and you have mangled language magic.

We’ve all heard them. Some make us cringe; some we don’t even recognize. A common example: “Works like a champ.” A champ, or champion, usually has very little to do with something working well. But a lot of people use it. For them it “works like a charm.”

On the other hand, we have “chomping at the bit.” Actually it’s “champing at the bit,”but the chomping version is so ubiquitous it has become acceptable. Except by people like me.

How well charms actually work I don’t know, but I do know that chomping sounds “righter” than champing. These things sometimes amuse me; when they don’t they just annoy me. Indeed, sometimes they get my dandruff up.

I don’t want to run over the same ground, but however you define it, I know it when I hear it or see it - like our old companion, pornography.

I hear goofy amalgamations of malaprops and cliches stirred together with confusion. I hear phrases or sayings that are mangled and subtly morphed into something that makes sense, but not in the sense one was expecting, and usually by someone who misspoke under pressure.

And like a good joke, such a hosed-up cliche takes you one way, then yanks you another.

Sports figures are the mangled cliche kings. In that world cliches are ubiquitous. One could say they’re as numerous as stars in the sea.

Prodded by four or five different cable sports outlets to provide pithy quotes, they fall back on “reinterpreted” cliches.

Making light of these guys may be like catching fish in a barrel, but you should remember: When you can’t say something smart, just say nothing. And avoid people who are grabby around barrels.

After a particularly disappointing loss, some heart burned coaches say that their team has to “move on.” After their tough loss, they’re going to “start from scratch.”

Or, as one football coach recently said, “Our team needs a new slate.” Apparently either they lost or damaged their old metaphoric slate or never had one to begin with. So, after getting a new slate, they could write on it, then wipe this new slate clean.

We know what he means, but I doubt that’s the cliche he was looking for.

Sports types are asked, ad nauseam, how they will handle their next opponent. It’s gonna be tough, they allow. We’re facing a good team, solid, good fundamentals, they say. Indeed, recently, a coach opined that his underdog team was facing “a tall task.”

I wasn’t sure which cliche he mangled. A “tall order”? A “tough task”? Although it could be lengthy, something tall doesn’t seem that daunting. On second thought, perhaps so, if you’re a basketball team facing a sweaty 7-foot center with hair growing between his red piggy eyes.

But the coach seemed very earnest when he said it. I’m sure he meant it.

Such a team may be such an underdog that the chances of winning seem remote, even laughable. One coach facing just such a task, when asked about his team’s chances, said his team faced “rare odds.”

An awkward combination, but completely understandable. I knew immediately what he meant. Opportunities to win such games were rare; the odds were against you.

The beauty of such statements isn’t that they are indecipherable. Nope, these statements evoke a feeling, a pre-intellectual understanding that has little to do with strict definition.

In other words: Dude, I get it.

On the other hand, a coach describing an opponent as “Byzantine shellfish” would not only be incredibly random, it would make no sense whatsoever. This strange term would be so new, so cutting edge, it would forge new ground.

Stopping to parse someone’s words, to plumb the depths of meaning, to wrestle with what the speaker was “really saying” probably wasn’t the harried coach’s intent. Clearly they had a tough game coming up and were probably going to get their butts kicked.

Sports commentators, the majority of them former players and coaches, aren’t immune. They get paid to speak with authority, and with such power comes great responsibility.

And sometimes great bewilderment.

Indeed, not only do they put those malaprops out there, they present them with well-paid aplomb.

They analyze and pontificate ... they opinion ate, one might say. A lively discussion about a beleaguered football coach in hot water because of a goose egg in the win column got grim. His job could be on the line, he could be at the end of his rope.

This coach, said one be suited talking head, was “under a lot of heat.”

Again, I knew what he meant. The coach was, as the phrase goes, “under a lot of pressure,” he was “feeling the heat.” Because it would be ridiculous to assert that this coach was currently beneath some hot object.

I doubt he was standing beneath a sizzling George Foreman grill.

One spiky-coifed sports talker recently asserted that a certain football team, one with a winning record, wasn’t as good as that record indicated. They just aren’t that good, he said.

The creaky former quarterback seated beside him looked goggle-eyed and exclaimed, “What are you kidding?”

Indeed. What was he kidding in his dazzling combination of “what are you talking about?” and “who are you kidding?”

Sports figures aren’t the only ones prone to malapropping. Presidents can do it. Even “smart” people.

A television commentator, in reference to an up-and coming company, allowed that their new venture would “forge new ground.”

And the other day an expensively pinstriped financial commentator, analyzing recent dealings by ultra-rich business geezer Warren Buffett, allowed that these negotiations were delicate and prone to failure. Buffett had to tread a fine line, he implied.

Or as the business expert said, Buffett is “treading a fine balance.”

I heard a subtle one at work the other day. I won’t name names; most likely no one - especially the person who said it - picked up on it but me.

It was during one of our relentless series of meetings, and some information shared within our small group wasn’t going to leave the room. As my co-worker said, “Let’s keep it close to our chests.”

None of us were wearing vests at the time, so I guess the only thing we could hold this information against were our chests. Without that article of clothing we couldn’t hold it “close to the vest.”

No one misunderstood him; some may have misheard him because “chest” rhymes with “vest.” It was as obvious as the noses on our faces.

Now I’m sure there are lots of you out there like me. You cringe and chuckle. When we hear things in person, we usually keep our discoveries to ourselves. But you aren’t alone out there. I feel your pain, a pain similar to getting your “funny bone” whacked. Which isn’t really funny at all.

It’s clear as a whistle to me.

E-mail:

jsykes@arkansasonline.com