Basic Trope: Someone mixes up two metaphors.
- Straight: Marty is trying to say "you can't have your cake and eat it too" or "you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs." It comes out as "You can't have your cake without breaking a few eggs!"
- Exaggerated: "When push comes to shove, the mice will play, the cookie crumbles, and a penny saved is a friend indeed!"
- Downplayed: Marty stumbles midway through his sentence, but then stops and says the correct one.
- Justified:
- Marty was thinking of both phrases at once, and it came out wrong.
- Marty isn't a native English speaker.
- Inverted: Marty combines two made-up metaphors and gets one that makes perfect sense.
- Subverted: When Marty says "don't put all your eggs in one basket before they hatch", it seems like a mixup, but it's actually a common phrase in his family.
- Double Subverted: But his family got the phrase wrong in the first place, too; Marty just thinks it's correct.
- Parodied: Marty runs off many idioms without even considering how they fit together: "Every dog makes lemonade in mysterious ways like a kid in a candy store, except after C!"
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes Marty gets metaphors right and combines them effortlessly, but other times, they wind up making no sense.
- Averted:
- Marty doesn't use metaphors at all.
- Marty gets his metaphors straight.
- Enforced: "Marty's not very good at English. Let's do a joke where he mixes up two phrases."
- Lampshaded: "What goes up comes around! Hold on, that's not right..."
- Invoked: Marty's friends teach him the wrong metaphors because they find it funny.
- Exploited: Marty's friends are able to distinguish him from an impostor because they know that he can never say idioms straight.
- Defied: Marty carefully recites his phrases in his head to make sure he gets them straight.
- Discussed: "Wait, did he just say 'time heals all wounds when you're having fun'? That can't be right!"
- Conversed: "I always like those jokes where characters mix up phrases."
- Played for Drama: Marty is stumbling over his words because he's giving a speech and he's very nervous.
You can look a gift Mixed Metaphor in the mouth, but you can't make it drink.
