cocktail = deadly mixture

[Jonathan Lighter]

For years TV and radio news have liked to use the word  _cocktail_ as the
default metaphor for almost any kind of
mixture, especially if threatening.

CNN had provided an unusually good ex. this morning.  As an undersea video
showed clouds of oil and natural gas belching forth from the severed BP
pipeline, the combination was described as "a cocktail for disaster."

Note the syntactical blend with "recipe for disaster."

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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