Mad as a cut steak

A friend of mine is constantly misquoting sayings. She does it so much that I’ve ‘caught’ it off her and now do it on purpose as a bit of a joke.

I was reminded of this when I wrote my last post about annoying things and Justin commented that he misquotes sayings on purpose and this can annoy people.

He told me one to say to people who like Star Wars is – Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only ‘choice’.

I’m pretty sure the saying ‘Mad as a cut snake’ is Aussie (please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), But my friend always says, ‘Mad as a cut steak‘ – which sends me into fits of laughter, because she fervently believes she’s right.

I wrote the novel Let Sleeping Gods Lie with the misquotation of, Let sleeping dogs lie. In the novel I have a minor character who constantly misquotes without realising (just like my friend).

George W Bush was a classic misquoter and the one that sticks in my head is –

There’s a famous saying in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says fool me once – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.

He was not only misquoting a quote, but misquoting song lyrics as well!

Misquoted song lyrics are just as rib-tickling.

I became the butt of the family jokes when I was singing along with Jimi Hendrix one night. It went a little bit like this ‘There must be some kind of way out of here, said the trumpet to the theme.’  I’d like to say I was about ten years old at the time, but I wasn’t – it was about a month ago.

My hubby totally cracked up. ‘It’s the joker and the thief’, he said. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know that!’

Um – I always thought it was the trumpet and the theme! The other (much better known) misquote from Hendrix is that classic, ‘Scuze me while I kiss this guy!’

Do you misquote? What is your favourite misquoted line?

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