"step away from the X"

[Wilson Gray]

I've beeen hearing this for years on the various TV cop shows. Its
cliche-ness has made  it popular in comedy.

-Wilson

On 4/21/07, James Harbeck <jharbeck at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
> Subject:      "step away from the X"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here's a lately popular idiom, started by "Step away from the
> vehicle," I'm pretty sure. "Step away from the Blackberry" gets 158
> Google hits all by itself. If you search just "step away from the"
> you get nealry a million hits; some of the ones on the first couple
> of pages are graffiti, cold medicine, keyboard, spell-checker (yay
> for that one!), social media release, PC, mousse (with your hands
> up), shovel, podium, Gatt chart, jokes, computer, and tofu burger.
>
> James Harbeck.
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l
Clemens
------
The tongue has no bones, yet it breaks bones.

                                           Rumanian proverb

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