One of the great mangler’s of the King’s English is former taoiseach Bertie Ahern
I also prefer his “squid” to that “squib”. “Squid” conjures up all sorts of lively images, which may indeed suggest an opposite meaning to the phrase. But you can’t have everything.
One of the great mangler’s of the King’s English has had to be former taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Though it was the Queen’s English he mangled then. As far as can be determined, this was not politically inspired grandiloquence by one of our more republican taoisigh. He once famously advised Dáil colleagues “don’t upset the apple tart.” It was an update of the phrase “don’t upset the cart”, used since Roman times to mean “don’t spoil everything.” Okay, the Bertie modernisation may have escaped most people, but – hey – everyone understood. Isn’t that what matters?
Similarly with his 2003 reference to the EU’s Middle East peace plan as a “road crash” when he meant “roadmap”. However, my favourite example of Bertiespeak, by a mile, was his frustrated 2006 warning that it didn’t help for people “to start throwing white elephants and red herring at each other.” Mother a’ God! Only Bertie could mix surf and turf like that!
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