Though I post daily, I think of more post ideas all the time, more than I can post. I write some ideas on paper, some in files, some in browser tabs, some on the big blackboard in my apartment.
Usually I get around to posting each idea. Sometimes after a while I decide the idea isn’t worth posting.
One post idea has sat on my board maybe for a year, far longer than others. I can’t bring myself to erase it but it doesn’t seem worth posting either. It’s not even that original. I guess I’m sharing this build up to the idea to share some of the creative process, if these notes of context qualify.
I like mixed metaphors. I like when people look at things in unusual ways that others might not think of. I like when someone says something differently or unusually but close enough that others might not notice.
Years ago, when I was in graduate school, there was a van that drove us from Manhattan to the physics lab north of the city where we built and calibrated our component of the satellite. The lab did other things too, and decades before did cutting edge particle physics research and experimentation, when particle colliders didn’t have to be as large as cities to explore new territory.
On the van ride up once, some comedians were talking. I think it was on NPR, since Columbia people listened to such things. In any case, one of the comedians, in the course of just talking, said what if you didn’t listen closely sounded like, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Then a couple of us looked at each other. Something was different than we expected.
They had said, “Once bitten, shame on you. Twice shy, shame on me.”
It was just different enough that if we hadn’t paid close attention, we would have missed it. The van being full of physicists, we tended to pay close attention.
It wasn’t a mixed metaphor, but something like a mixed idiom or phrase, blended from “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me” and “Once bitten, twice shy.”
Besides liking it in the moment, I forgot for years what idioms were blended so couldn’t remember it. Probably decades, so when I remembered it, I wrote on my blackboard to post about it. Since then I couldn’t see a reason readers would find it interesting, but I couldn’t let go either.
Now I’ve posted it. My recollection of “Once bitten, shame on you. Twice shy, shame on me,” mainly so I could erase the note from my blackboard and find it again if I wanted. Sorry if I bored you.
After writing everything above, I searched for the phrase. Beyond coming up in two places, I learned the word created to describe the mixed idiom: malaphor, I think referring to the word malapropism. Here’s a page of them. Here’s a reddit post on this malaphor from two years ago with no responses, but the community is for malaphors. Here’s another reddit post on it from ten months ago, to which someone responded “Bit me once, shame one me. Bite me twice, shy, you can’t get fooled again,” referring to George W. Bush.
I liked browsing other posts in that community. I’ve come up with other malaphors. I can’t remember them now, but if or when I do, I’ll post them here. If you think of any, feel free to put them in the comments. I’d love to see them.