more of What is this?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 11:27:32 -0700, Arnold M. Zwicky
<zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:

>On Jun 14, 2005, at 5:10 PM, Alan Baragona wrote:
>
>> Sunday's Doonesbury has a fine example of these blended cliches, or
>> whatever they're going to be called, among a catalogue of Bushisms.
>>
>> "Free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no
>> conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat." (Sept. 17, 2004)
>
>looks like a substitution blend, with the "whim" of "at a whim"
>substituting for the "drop" of "at the drop of a hat".

Reminiscent of the idiom blend "on a whim and a prayer", combining "on a
whim" with "on a wing and a prayer". This one is a bit eggcornier because
of the phonetic similarity of /wIm/ and /wIN/. Nonetheless I marked it
questionable in the Eggcorn Database (perhaps there should be an "idiom
blend" category): <http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/95/whim/>.


--Ben Zimmer