In a previous post about idioms I mentioned that when an element of an idiom is changed it usually loses its idiomatic meaning. What about changing the word order of an idiom? One of my favorite television shows just included some dialogue that indicates changing the word order of an idiom does not necessarily take away from the idiomatic meaning.
On last week's episode of Pushing Daisies Ned's half-brothers(that are twins) demonstrate their skills as illusionists, to which Emerson Cod sarcastically remarks, "a magic show...where did I put that rat's ass I could give?"
Now that I think about it, there are many idioms in which the word order could be changed without losing the idiomatic meaning (so long as the speaker and listener are on the same page pragmatically).
2 comments:
Maybe I'm just a bit dense here but how can half-brothers be twins?
The brothers are twins and they are Ned's half-brothers because they have a different mother.
You are right though, I worded that in a confusing way.
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