put your leg in the fire

TankHughes commented on the word put your leg in the fire

I heard this repeatedly in a meeting this morning, used like stick your neck out in the context of volunteering to do QA between three websites. Before someone said that, I said "I know I'll probably kick myself for mentioning this, but..." so maybe kick primed a leg-based sacrificial idiom? Is it a translation or corporate jargon or a mixed metaphore?

August 24, 2015

slumry commented on the word put your leg in the fire

I decided to try this, but it has me stumped... Really, I can't quite make sense of this one. Irons in the fire? Break a leg? Put some skin in the game? In the course of my "research," I did come across this list, which has me doubling over in stitches http://tigger.uic.edu/~rramakri/Readings/Fun/Mixed-Metaphors.htm

August 24, 2015

qms commented on the word put your leg in the fire

Slumry, thank you! The list of mixed metaphors is great. Years ago, when I was a TA in an English department, we grad students compiled such a list from student papers, but it was much shorter and my ancient ink-on-paper version vanished long ago.

I am going to save this until December and use it for Christmas presents.

August 24, 2015

slumry commented on the word put your leg in the fire

I am glad you enjoyed the list, qms. I often wish I had saved some amazing figures of speech I have come across when doing editing.

August 24, 2015

bilby commented on the word put your leg in the fire

Home-distilled vodka and the Hokey Pokey were never going to be a good mix.

August 24, 2015

TankHughes commented on the word put your leg in the fire

Brought this up a few times yesterday and here's the best answer:

A merger between put your feet to the fire as a high-stakes testing environment, and add another log to the fire meaning to add a new idea to the mix.

August 25, 2015