"a Hail Mary of a chance"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Nov 11 04:51:54 UTC 2011


"I said they had to get somewhere around here in order to have a Hail Mary of a chance.  They've got it at midfield."

--announcer on NFL Network describing San Diego Chargers' desperate attempt to get in position to win the game (presumably by hurling a "Hail Mary" pass, discussed in earlier threads on the list)

I know Arnold has written up many posts on the "X ADJ of a N" construction (e.g. "How incompetent of a politician"), but are there any examples in the archive along the lines of "a Hail Mary of a chance", meaning something like "a chance for a Hail Mary"?

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list