The Ford Executive Who Kept Score of Colleagues' Verbal Flubs. i needed this laugh

[question everything]

Mike O’Brien emailed a few hundred colleagues last month to announce his retirement after 32 years at Ford Motor. The sales executive’s note included the obligatory career reflections and thank yous—but came with a twist. Attached to the email was a spreadsheet detailing a few thousand violations committed by his co-workers over the years.

During a 2019 sales meeting to discuss a new vehicle launch, a colleague blurted out: “Let’s not reinvent the ocean.”

At another meeting, in 2016, someone started a sentence with: “I don’t want to sound like a broken drum here, but…”

After one colleague declared: “It’s a huge task, but we’re trying to get our arms and legs around it,” O’Brien quipped: “Adding ‘legs’ into the mix makes it sound kinda kinky.”

(snip)

The spreadsheet is the more-detailed repository of the data (not “suppository” of the data, a particularly unfortunate case of word-misuse that made the board. Twice). It breaks out the examples into categories that include:

Sports/Exercise-related: “We’re really low on money right now…we’re dancing on thin ice,” and, “We need to keep running in our swim lanes.” Also, this mixed metaphor: “I know these are swing-for-the-moon opportunities, but I think we should pursue them.”
Body parts: “We need to make sure dealers have some skin in the teeth;” and “It’s no skin on our back,” to which O’Brien appended that it sounded like “a horrible medical condition.”
Food-related: “Too many cooks in the soup.” And: “Read between the tea leaves.”
Animals (the largest category, with 80 entries): “I’m not trying to beat a dead horse to death.” Another: “We need to talk about the elephant in the closet,” one person said.

More

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ford-motor-mike-obrien-malaprops-6e560520?st=HdgZy2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

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[rsdsharp]

1. A paralegal who worked at my former firm once said the someone was "a lucky cow."

Yesterday, I got word that she is retiring. When she thanked me for congratulating her on her retirement she mentioned she still mixes up her cliches. She had referred to a generation of people retiring from the firm as “the changing of the torch.”

It’s the Norm Crosby syndrome.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Humerous when they form spoonerisms. . . . nt

[MLAA]

3. I knew someone who was known for her mixed metaphors. My favorite was cold as dice.

[LogDog75]

4. Sounds like they had a lot of Ed Crankshafts

Ed Crankshaft is a cartoon character. He's a elderly man who drives a school bus and is a curmudgeon who lives next door to his daughter and her family. He's known to the local fire department for the number of times they've been called out to his house for when he starts his BBQ grill.
Ed uses a lot of mixed metaphors.