A Word in Your Shell-like: Synecdoche

Homer referred to the goddess Hera as “cow-eyed Hera”, or sometimes just “the cow-eyed”. The Victorians and the Bright Young Things of the 1920s parodied Homeric diction as follows:

a word in your shell-like: your shell-like ear
across the briny: the briny ocean
as per: as per usual
cast your baby blues on this: your baby-blue eyes
delirious: deliriously happy

dim and distant: dim and distant past (A few misdemeanours in the dim and distant. Arthur Daley)

diving into the percale: the percale sheets (S.J. Perelman)
doesn’t cut it: doesn’t cut the mustard
ecstatic: ecstatically happy

for lack of the folding, the hard-earned: folding money, hard-earned cash (Are you holding the folding – or just “holding”?)

for the foreseeable: for the foreseeable future
full canonicals: full canonical dress

I haven’t the foggiest: the foggiest notion
I’ll be there in a twinkling: in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (Bible)
I’m simply ravenous! ravenous with hunger

It’s positively Stygian in here! The gloom is Stygian – as dark as the River Styx that ferried the dead to the Greek underworld.

Let’s be crystal: crystal clear
not a shadow: not a shadow of a doubt
not in the slightest: not in the slightest degree
riveting: fascinating (My attention was riveted.)

the great unwashed, the many-headed: Victorian for “the poor” and “the mob”
Today I will write four pages of deathless. (Anthony LaFauci, deathless prose is meant.)
trip the light fantastic: Trip it, trip it, as we go/ On the light fantastic toe. (Milton)

vitals: vital organs, vital functions
the needful, the necessary: the necessary funds
the wherewithal: with which to pay
We haven’t an earthly: an earthly chance 

More figures of speech here, and links to the rest.

All this and more in my book Boo & Hooray! Available on Amazon.