You Said a Mouthful

Now that you have uncovered the hidden herds of animals, flocks of birds, swarms of insects, and universities of fish that metaphorically run, fly, creep, and swim through our English language, it’s lime to nibble on another spicy, meaty, juicy honey of a topic that I know you’ll want to savor and relish. Feast your eyes now on the veritable potpourri of mushrooming food expressions that grace the table of our English language and season our tongue. As we chew the fat about the food-filled phrases that are packed like sardines and sandwiched into our everyday conversations, I’ll sweeten the pot with some tidbits of food for thought guaranteed to whet your appetite.

I know what’s eating you. I’ve heard through the grapevine that you don’t give a fig because you think I’m nutty as a fruitcake; that you’re fed up with me for biting off more than I can chew; that you want me to drop this subject like a hot potato because I’m a spoiled rotten weenie; and that you’re giving me the raspberry for asking you to swallow a cheesy, corny, mushy, saccharine, seedy, soupy, sugarcoated, syrupy topic that just isn’t your cup of tea.

I understand that you’re beet red with anger that I’m feeding you a bunch of baloney, garbage, and tripe; that I’ve rubbed salt in your wounds by making you ruminate on a potboiler that’s no more than a tempest in a teapot; that I’ve upset your apple cart by rehashing an old chestnut that’s just pie in the sky and won’t amount to a hill of beans; that you want to chew me out for putting words in your mouth; mat you’re boiling and simmering because you think I’m a candy-assed apple polisher who’s out to egg you on.

But nuts to all that. That’s the way the cookie crum­bles. Eat your heart out and stop crying in your beer. I’m going to stop mincing words and start cooking with gas, take my idea off the back burner and bring home the bacon without hamming it up. No matter how you slice it, this fruitful, tasteful topic is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the icing on the cake. Rather than crying over spilt milk and leaping out of me frying pan and into the fire, I’m going to put all my eggs into one basket, take potluck, and spill the beans. I’m cool as a cucumber and confident that this crackerjack, peachy-keen, vintage feast that I’ve cooked up will have you eating out of the palm of my hand.

I don’t wish to become embroiled in a rhubarb, but beefing and stewing sound like sour grapes from a tough nut to crack – kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. But if you’ve digested the spoonfed culinary meta­phors up to this point in this meal-and-potatoes chapter, the rest will be gravy, duck soup, a piece of cake, and easy as pie – just like taking candy from a baby.

Just think of the various people we meet every day. Some have taste. Others we take with a grain of salt. Some drive us bananas and crackers. Still others are absolutely out to lunch:

*the young sprouts and broths of lads who feel their oats and are full of beans;

*the sally, crusty oldsters who are wrinkled as prunes and live to a ripe old age well beyond their salad days;

*the peppery smart cookies (no mere eggheads, they) who use their beans and noodles to cut the mustard;

*the half-baked meat heads, the flaky couch pota­toes, and the pudding-headed vegetables who drive us nuts with their slow-as-molasses peabrains and who gum up the works and are always in a pickle, a jam, hot water, the soup, or a fine kettle of fish;

*the unsavory, crummy, hard-boiled, ham-fisted rot­ten apples with their cauliflower ears, who can cream us, beat the stuffing out of us, make us into mincemeat and hamburger, and knock us ass over teakettle and flatter than a pancake;

*the mealymouthed marshmallows, Milquetoasts, milksops, half-pints, and cream puffs who walk on egg-shells and whose knees turn to jelly as they gingerly waffle and fudge on every issue to see which side their bread is buttered on;

*the carrot-topped, pizza-faced string beans and bean poles who, with their lumpy Adam's apples, are long drinks of water;

*the top bananas, big cheeses, and big breadwinners who ride the gravy train by making a lot of lettuce and dough and who never work for peanuts or small potatoes;

*the honeys, tomatoes, dumplings, cheesecakes, and sweetie pies with their peaches-and-cream complexions, strawberry blond hair, almond eyes, and cherry lips;

*the saucy tarts who wiggle their melons and buns and fritter away their time buttering up their meal tickets and milking their sugar daddies dry;

*the salt-of-the-earth good eggs who take the cake, know their onions, make life a bowl of cherries, and become the apples of our eye and the toasts of the town.

Hot dog! I hope you’re pleased as punch that this souped-up topic is a plum, not a lemon: the berries, not the pits. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this cream of the crop of palate-pleasing food figures is bound to sell like hotcakes. I’m no glutton for punishment for all the tea in China, but, if I’m wrong, I’ll eat crow and humble pie. I don’t wish to take the words right out of your mouth, but, in a nutshell, it all boils down to the fact that every day we truly eat our words.

Task 5. In the text below you will find “violent” idioms. What connotation do they have? In what situations can you use them? Are they appropriate in any style?

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1162