Daniel in Youngstown, Ohio, reports that his grandfather used an odd expression when the whole family left the house: We’re off like a herd of turtles — or a turd of hurtles! The first part of the expression is one of several similarly silly phrases, and the second is a Spoonerism, in which the initial letters of words are transposed, either accidentally or on purpose, to humorous effect. This is part of a complete episode.
Unparalleled misalignments are pairs of phrases in which the words in one phrase are each synonyms of the words in the other, but the phrases themselves mean different things. For example, the phrase blanket statement can be paired with cover story...
Jameela in Charlotte, North Carolina, says her family refers to their television’s remote control as the clicker, but her friends insist on calling it the remote. These devices go by other names as well, including doofer, flicker, zapper, and...
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