"Ironing the bugs out": Mixed metaphors. (Editing).

The mixed metaphor has long been vilified by language lovers. After all, a metaphor per se is often a stretch. The attempt to combine two or more vastly dissimilar figures of speech usually results in a jarring incongruity and an absurd image. Such clashes are often amusing, although the humor is strictly unintentional.

"The issue is on the back burner in a holding pattern." That's one of my favorite examples, recorded in 1976 by Washington Post language watcher Lawrence Harrison. It is also pleonastic--another problem that commonly occurs when tropes are tangled.

Even great writers have committed this linguistic solecism. Consider Shakespeare's "Or to take arms against a sea of troubles." Style guru Theodore M. Bernstein exonerated the Bard in this instance, however, observing that "the discrepancy here is not obtrusive and the effect is certainly far from ludicrous."

But in the hands of speakers or writers who are not as skilled, the results tend to be less prepossessing. Following are a few choice samples I've gleaned from the media. (Text not within quotation marks is paraphrased from the source cited.)

* Network TV programming simply reflects our society, a broadcasting executive insisted. "It does not push the envelope over the edge." (The New York Times, August 1,1991)

* When the mood of investors suddenly turned from bearish to bullish, Edward Collins, head of U.S. stock trading at Daiwa securities America, proclaimed: "Here we are, off to the races again like there's no tomorrow." (The Wall Street Journal, December 20, 1996)

* One of O.J. Simpson's attorneys, in an interview: "If the shoe was on the other foot, I'd be peeling you off the ceiling." (CNN, July 20, 1995)

* "Illegal Immigrants Race Against the Clock to Get Through a Small Window of Opportunity." (Headline, The New York Times, May 1, 2001)

* Technology writer Thomas E. Weber, denouncing pop-up ads that irritate internet users: "They swarm the screen like whining mosquitos, leaving us hapless Web-suffers to swat them with mouse clicks." (The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2001)

* "Though hardly out of the woods yet, the death watch is over for News Corp...." (The New York Times, February 26, 1992)

Of course, with sufficient linguistic dexterity, it's possible for more than two metaphors to battle each other, as these examples demonstrate:

* A Pentagon staffer, complaining that efforts to reform the military have thus far been too timid: "It's just ham-fisted salami-slicing by the bean counters." (The Wall Street Journal, May 9,1997)

* Pediatrician and author William Sears, commenting on a trend toward unorthodox childrearing practices: "We should have nipped this in the bud before it took off, metastasized." (The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 1998)

* "It's easy to sympathize with Bush. He must be enormously frustrated to see President Clinton remain as mired in the limelight as a Goodyear Blimp lodged in the Lincoln Tunnel." (Syndicated political column, February 27, 2001)

In conclusion, "when you boil it right down to brass tacks" (a specimen cited by Bergen Evans), it is best to avoid mixing your metaphors.

Reprinted from Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics (August 2001), a quarterly magazine (www.wordways.com). In addition to being an award-winning direct mail copywriter (NL/NL 10/15/ 01). Hauptman has written two books an "recreational linguistics."

* A fun and useful web site for writers--which offers contest descriptions and deadlines and articles on writing, freelance submission techniques, and self-publishing--is www.writingworld.com.