Welcome to Cliche Thursday, where we occasionally deconstruct 5 expressions that we’ve all become a little too familiar with.
Today we’re looking to the animal kingdom for a little inspiration.
Here we go…
“She’s as drunk as a skunk” – So what you’re saying is, “She’s completely sober”, since skunks are incapable of opening a bottle of beer or pouring themeslves a shot of Jameson.
And why a ‘skunk’? Is it just because it rhymes? If that’s the only reason, let me suggest a few possible improvements:
“She’s as drunk as a monk” – granted, most monks don’t binge drink, but at least they have opposable thumbs and refrigerators to store Guinness.
“She’s as drunk as a punk” – Those bratty junior highers are into all sorts of crap these days. And when you weigh 75 pounds all it takes is one Coors Light to get you tipsy.
“She’s as drunk as Theodore the Chipmunk” – If you must go with an animal, at least pick one that lives with a human and has a beer belly.
“I felt like a fish out of water” – Oh, wow. I’m sorry to hear that you were felt like you were 3 minutes away from dying.
What’s that? You were just trying to say that you were slightly uncomfortable? Hm…
So when a fish is flopping around on the bottom of the boat, gasping for just one more sip of life-giving water, you would call that situation “slightly uncomfortable”?
You have no soul.
“Were you raised by wolves?” – The next time someone asks you this because you’re not eating as politely as they’d like or because you’re room is messy, say “Yes, actually I was raised by wolves.”
Then roll around on the ground to mark your scent, howl at them for a few minutes, and rip them limb from limb with your teeth.
Who’s the jokester now, mangled carcass?
“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle” – So, not only are you demanding that one of your brothers or sisters intermarry with a monkey, but you’re also putting immediate pressure on them to have a kid?
You might make a great uncle someday, but you’re a lousy sibling.
“Happy as a clam” – Not to rehash the skunk conversation from a minute ago, but are you sure you want to go with a ‘clam’ here?
Not only are bivalve mollusks incapable of feeling an emotion like happiness, but even if they could, they have no face to show it.
And EVEN IF we suspend our disbelief for a second and assume that they could feel happiness AND had a face to show it, they still wouldn’t have anything to be happy about, would they? They spend their entire lives burrowed in sediment until one day they’re plucked from their home by the Gorton’s fisherman and end up in your chowder. Some life.
—
What About You? If an expression is chaffing your skin lately, flame it in the comments.
(for past editions of Cliche Thursday, click here.)