Cheese fallen off your cracker? [long post]

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:40 PM +0000 3/3/05, Michael Quinion wrote:
>Instances provided by Jonathan Lighter:
>
>>  He's not running on all 8 cylinders.
>>  Doesn't have both oars in the water.
>>  Few cans shy of a six pack!
>>  Few bytes short of a K.
>>  He's a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.
>>  His elevator doesn't quite reach the top floor.
>
>[etc]
>
>Is there a special name for this kind of comparison that implies a
>deficiency in intellect?

I mentioned in my last posting, there is--or at least used to be--a
web-posted list (from a more general humor site) that collected these
under the rubric of "short-of"s.  Not the best name, of course, since
it's somewhat opaque and--as demonstrated by the above examples (or
that "not the sharpest scalpel in the autoclave" one I cited)--not
always descriptive.  And in fact misremembered.  Now that I rethink
it, they're more frequently called "full-deckisms" (as in what
someone is purportedly not playing with).  A useful (if not
exhaustive) list is available at
http://herbison.com/canon/fulldeck.html.

larry