When metaphors, adages, maxims, and idioms become clichés and words sound similar, it’s easy for people to mix them up, and the resulting jumble can add a touch of levity to otherwise heavy conversations. As the Wall Street Journal reports, that’s exactly why recently retired Ford executive Mike O’Brien decided to keep track of groan/laugh-worthy goofs across several dry-erase boards, data which was then turned into a spreadsheet.
Collected from 2014 up to O’Brien’s retirement last month, the recorded mixed metaphors and malapropisms reportedly tally in at 2,229, and they range from mildly amusing to knee-slappingly hilarious. A digital compilation was O’Brien’s parting gift to colleagues, but the boards certainly weren’t a secret operation. As the Wall Street Journal writes:
The list became so known—and feared—that one executive cursed O’Brien’s name in a meeting after tripping up on an expression. Violators could appeal their inclusion but success was rare. And nobody was above a grammatical roasting: Ford CEO Jim Farley twice made the list.
Indeed, this certainly seems like an equal-opportunity repository, and O’Brien himself earned a podium on the list, squeaking in at number three. As you might expect, not everyone was reportedly thrilled to end up on the board, and some data was reportedly anonymized, but the side-quest seemed to become something of an office tradition.
While we don’t have a full picture of everything on the list, several linguistic pause moments published in the Wall Street Journal stick out to me, like the hilariously redundant “I’m not trying to beat a dead horse to death,” the definitely not food safety-approved “Too many cooks in the soup,” and the unintentionally macabre “He’s going to be so happy he’ll be like a canary in a coal mine!” That last one reportedly came courtesy of marketing manager Mike Murphy, leader of the board.
Oh, and there’s more. Photos in the Wall Street Journal depict the extensive collection of boards, full of sayings like the strange and off-putting “Chew this elephant off,” the amusing “Mazel tov cocktail,” both “smartest knife in the drawer” and “smartest tool in the shed,” the trippy “I hear an aftertaste,” and the borderline medieval “flush it out the window.” [Ed note: I’m down the rabbit hole on this now. “No holds bar;” “If it ain’t broke, don’t break it;” “Point of view standpoint” … so much gold! – Pete]
Regardless, recording an infraction certainly seemed like it could shift the tone of things, especially when the moment of spoken strangeness comes from a division director. As the Wall Street Journal wrote:
Once in a meeting, Ford’s then-head of U.S. sales, Andrew Frick, was making a point about a sales promotion: “We have a better program, but the competition has more foot on the ground,” he said. Sensing the stumble, he looked up at O’Brien, laughing. “Wait, is it ‘feet on the ground’? Dammit O’Brien!”
Still, the board of words seems to have had just the right sort of internal impact. As former Ford division director and current S&P Global enterprise business executive director Scott Cauvel wrote on LinkedIn:
While some could see this as a fluff piece, or even possibly more negatively as a waste or a drain on productivity at a historic but often-rebuilding automaker, I’d tell you it was exactly the opposite. I watched and participated first-hand as this actively, routinely and positively affected team morale, collaboration, commaradrie and productivity. This levity bonded everyone together … to work harder, to work smarter, and along the way, find a deeper appreciation & respect for their teammates.
As far as largely harmless ways to keep one’s self amused in the office go, this has to be one of the best. If I had a list like this, I’d always know I could turn to it for a chuckle, and sometimes a little light-hearted laughter is exactly what you need.
Top graphic credit: Ford
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“People who talk in metaphors oughta shampoo my crotch.” – Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall
But that photo of a 2-door Heritage Bronco in red? How dare you include something so
pornographic without an NSFW warningbeuatiful!I’ve definitely heard smartest tool in the shed/drawer said before, very tongue-in-cheek and self aware. It can be fun to purposefully mix metaphors like that.
Also I feel like someone more clever than myself could easily make “mazel tov cocktail” work as a great bit of wordplay.
I love smart as a box of rocks.
In the Netherlands, at a lot of the offices, English is the main language. It is perfectly possible that the complete room is filled with Dutch people speaking English to each other. This gets funny when they translate Dutch sayings into English. A famous example, in Dutch we have the saying “daar komt de aap uit de mouw”, which was translated to “now there comes the monkey out of the sleeve”. It means that someone shows their true colors, releaving the real reasoning behind something. There are many more and I have seen Bullshit bingo cards with them
That’s a wonderful saying, and I am going to start spreading it among my English-speaking colleagues.
An old coworker: “That’s the straw that boiled the ocean”
I at one point was dating a French scientist… I work in Corporate America. She wanted to just listen to my six hours of meetings one day and didn’t understand so many of these phrases, but “Boil the Ocean” was the one that made her want to throw things.
Damnit! Now I got this in my head.
Toad The Wet Sprocket – Walk On The Ocean (Official Video)
I was reviewing a technical document once and I started with “We should be very clear in this section because…” then launched into the most non-sensical jumble of words and nonsense imaginable.
I sent the email, and got a call almost immediately with the technical writer roaring with laughter. I read back the note and even I couldn’t make heads or tails of what I was trying to communicate, and we shared a good laugh. The writer printed off my quote and framed it in her office. Made me chuckle every time I saw it.
The father of one of my wife’s friends (in his defense, english was not his first language) was renown for saying things like, “you know, when you are in the forest, but you can’t see because the trees are in the way.”
I mean, he’s not wrong…
The saying “Mind your Ps and Qs” is originally from pub culture- pints and quarts. Be careful when drinking pints and quarts. I had a manager once say “Be on your Ps and Qs” which suggested she was buying a couple of rounds, and I laughed and laughed.
Cross your Ps and dot your Qs!
This wasn’t an idiom flub, but instead a relatively obscure movie reference that people in my office quoted all the time: “Please excuse the crudity of the model…” from Back to the Future where Doc Brown makes this super elaborate model demonstrating how the Delorean would catch the lightning cable at exactly the right time, and is apologizing for the not making it to scale and painting it.
“Please excuse the crudity of the model” was used whenever draft CAD concepts demonstrating an idea rather the finished product were shown in meetings.
We also had a quarter coin and banana CAD models in the library so people could “add a banana for scale” or use the coin for really tiny features. This was especially helpful trying to explain to non-engineers the bathtub-sized pump they needed wouldn’t fit into the shoebox-sized volume they specified.
I also liked “killing two stones with one bird”.
I have a model of a Lego man in CAD “for scale”.
I habitually mess with the scale of the Lego model to make it utterly useless as an indicator of the scale of anything else.
I wonder if it’s shit like this that explains my terrible career?
I once heard someone say “My broads have been horizoned.”
They never lived that one down.
It’s better when they’re horizontaled.
I hope “irregardless” made the list
inconceivable!!
This is fantastic! Yes, good natured shit giving is absolutely a team builder.
Also, whenever I’m describing a dumb person, I will intentionally refer to them as, “Not the sharpest spoon in the shed.”
I wonder if doing it on purpose makes the list?
I prefer “dumber than the average bear” for those situations.
I like it! I will use that one as well … if I remember it.
Coworker knocked his laptop on the floor and the guy across the table yelled smooth move FedEx, and seemed very proud of himself
LOL!
I was once at one of those cringey ‘get to know another department’ corporate events. The head of procurement was asked to stand up and introduce what they do. He dismissively fluttered his hand in the air and said “we get stuffed”.
We have a guy here that has (unintentionally) said things like:
“This guy is breathing down my throat.”
and
“When one door closes another window opens.”
I’ve always been a fan of “fool me once, shame on you, fool me, you can’t get fooled again”
Working hard to put food on your family!
YEEEAAAHHH!! *puts on sunglasses*
Now watch this drive!
In our office we say “this isn’t rocket surgery”
Yep, same here.
I have a t-shirt that reads “I’m no rocket surgeon”
Does the pope shit in the woods?
I dunno, did his little snowglobe car break down there?
I assume “I’m just talking out loud here” made the list.
I was gonna claim “Mazel Tov Cocktail” for my future band name (to be started as soon as I learn an instrument, and how to read music, etc.), but a quick search turns up two bands, Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour and Mazel Tov Cocktail Party.
And if you are interested, various versions of a Mazel tov cocktail drink exists.
I’ve heard the band Nude Party formed, and then they learned instruments (their song “Chevrolet Van” is good, and the video too)
I used to keep a list of these at a previous job. One of my favorites was “Our customer service people are our biggest tools.”
But there were some other great ones along the way like “let’s eat through lunch” and We should have some kind of event with food between breakfast and lunch. Not sure what we would call these breakfast-lunches…”
Not the sharpest lightbulb in the litter
My boss (who, to be fair speaks ESL) came up with two of my favorites:
“You tell them to go to the sand!” which is possibly the Syrian translation/retranslation of “pound sand”. And “oh, did I say that too loud” rather than “oh, did I say that out loud”..
My old boss was French. He learned English on an Oil Rig. The Expression “excuse my French” traces to him. He invented his own idioms from broken English, French insults and general cursing. My favorite was his variant of “if Ifs and Buts were Candy and Nuts than we would all have a Merry Christmas.”
“If my mother had balls, I would call her my father!”
All yelled at the top of his lungs with an outrageous accent like John Cleese’s in The Holy Grail.
He sucked to work for because of his temper, but he was worth a story that would make everyone die laughing for decades. Like the time we went to Canada and he told Immigration “I have a very important meeting with AECL or is it AECM, not the ones that make nuclear bombs.” When we saw him 4 hours later, he was putting on his pants and cursing a blue streak quietly.
90% of what he said, I can’t type here. There might not be a policy about cussing and insulting words here yet, but there will be if I so much as hint of his daily behavior and language.
Dude was a legend. Like he would come into the office about every 2 years cussing about how in France, they would sedate you before doing a colonoscopy. Nobody had the heart to tell him sedation for the procedure is the norm in America too… if you don’t start the meeting with the nurse by working through the A, B, Cs of cuss words.
“Nobody had the heart to tell him sedation for the procedure is the norm in America too… if you don’t start the meeting with the nurse by working through the A, B, Cs of cuss words.”
BWAHAHAHA!!!
Just like never piss off the person who handles your food never piss off the person who puts a 6 foot camera up your butt.
That’s just good sense!
No it isn’t.
Oh wait. SENSE. I thought you typed SCENTS. Nevermind.
HA!
The French phrase I know is “if my aunt had any, she’d be my uncle.”
Likely where he got his.
His other common term was
“Ah, you and your GD Fly F…ing.” We figured that out as “nitpicking”.
He had others, but I would get insta-banned for typing them. Hell, I’m likely on a list for even thinking them.
I’d quote team members’ wild claims on whiteboards during meetings. Above the typical “It’ll be done tomorrow” lies we tell each other, the more absolutist, the better.
“This is easy, it’ll be done tomorrow” … Ultimately the engineer gave up, and we had to pivot the design completely.
“less than a day to complete, tops” … Only for it to take several hundred man-hours, and weeks late
Did “Hey, let’s try that Powershift Transmission” make the cut?
We had a similar thing going in a 7 month training program I was in, we had a small whiteboard that we would copy down once it got full and then start over. No idea who ended up with the book, but it’s not flattering haha. Anytime someone said something they would not want quoted, the whole class would shout “on the board!” and they would hang their heads in shame. It was a great source of levity and helped bond us together. Best training group I have ever worked with!
“If it ain’t broke, don’t break it” is Ted Woodford’s slogan on his shirts.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t break it” is solid advice. As an engineer I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought that in meetings.
I have a friend whose dad seemed to have the philosophy of “If it ain’t broke, take it apart, lose a few pieces, put it back together, and it will be!”
Yes, that’s my brother. Ask me how I know.
A good policy but as follow up if it is broken a little bit and IT won’t fix it break it more until they have to
I bought that shirt. I like the way he does what he does.
Honestly, I think this is just wise advice.