Many familiar phrases turn out to be trite as a cliché

When we describe someone as smart as a whip, we are likely to make them feel pleased as punch. But what is so smart about a whip, and why should punch be pleased?

Delving into the history of smart, we find that the word first meant “experiencing sharp pain.” Gradually the adjective took on additional meanings, including “quick, active, and prompt,” as in “look smart!” and, by extension, “clever, intelligent.” Smart as a whip unites the older and newer meanings.

In the phrase dead as a doornail, what’s so dead about a doornail? To find out, we must look back through the centuries to the craft of carpentry. Long-ago carpenters drove bigheaded metal nails into doors to connect the crosspieces on the back. The carpenters would hook the tip of the nail back to “clinch” the nail (as we clinch a deal). The nail was “dead,” meaning “fixed, rigid, immovable,” as in deadline and deadlock. It didn’t take long for the pun on “fixed, rigid, immovable” and “not alive” to become clinched in our language, as in Charles Dickens’ opening in A Christmas Carol: “Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.”

You’ve probably heard the expression slow as molasses (in January). But molasses isn’t slow. In the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, a massive vat of molasses collapsed on a warm day, producing a 25-foot-high wave that swept through neighborhoods at 35 miles per hour. Twenty-five people perished on that bittersweet day.

The punch that is so pleased in the cliché is not the stuff we drink, but the Punch of the Punch and Judy shows, created in the early 17th century. While most people believe that pleased as Punch is a food metaphor (and hence neglect to capitalize the P), the phrase in fact alludes to the cheerful singing and self-satisfaction of the extroverted puppet.

May you be smart as a whip and pleased as Punch when you review the adjective- as-a noun similes that follow:

Complete the following dozen clichés by using these food items:

1. American as 2. brown as 3. cool as 4. easy as 5. flat as 6. nutty as

7. red as 8. soft as 9. sweet as 10. thick as 11. warm as 12. wrinkled as

Answers

1. apple pie 2. a berry 3. a cucumber 4. pie 5. a pancake 6. a fruitcake

7. a beet / a lobster 8. butter 9. honey / sugar 10. pea soup 11. toast 12. a prune

Now complete the following clichés that include objects found around the house:

1. bald as 2. big as 3. black as 4. comfortable as 5. clean as

6. cute as 7. deaf as 8. high as 9. limp as 10. neat as

11. pretty as 12. rough as 13. sharp as 14. smooth as 15. soft as

16. stiff as 17. tight as 18. thin as 19. tough as 20. white as

Answers

1. a billiard ball 2. a house 3. pitch / the ace of spades 4. an old shoe 5. a whistle

6. a button 7. a post 8. a kite 9. a dishrag 10. a pin

11. a picture 12. sandpaper 13. a tack 14. silk 15. velvet

16. a board 17. a drum 18. a rake / a toothpick 19. nails / shoe leather 20. a sheet

For a change in approach, fill in the first part of each cliché by inserting the hackneyed adjective. Examples: green as grass / good as gold

1. as an arrow 2. as a bell 3. as a bone / as dust 4. as Croesus 5. as day

6. as the day is long 7. as the day you were born 8. as a dollar 9. as a fiddle 10. as a flash / a wink

11. as a hatter 12. as a judge 13. as life 14. as a lord 15. as Methuselah / the hills

16. as a new-born babe 17. as night and day 18. as the nose on your face 19. as a rail 20. as shootin’

21. as sin 22. as thieves 23. as a three-dollar bill 24. as a tomb 25. as a whistle

Answers

1. straight 2. clear 3. dry 4. rich 5. clear

6. honest 7. naked 8. sound 9. fit 10. quick

11. mad 12. sober 13. big / large 14. drunk 15. old

16. innocent 17. different 18. plain 19. thin 20. sure

21. ugly 22. thick 23. phony 24. silent 25. clean