A shiver down the backbone of business

One of our news stories today included the following quote:

News of massive cuts in much-needed road and rail infrastructure projects will send a shiver down the spine of an industry that forms the backbone of business in the country

A shiver down the spine... the backbone of business... is this an extended metaphor or just a mixed one?

Kneeling, begging and turning

Spotted this in a BBC News story on the Detroit Auto Show:

The slump brought the "Big Three" to their knees, begging bowls in hand, as they turned to the government for help.

Not a mixed metaphor as such, but kneeling and turning together sounds like a difficult operation. Holding the begging bowl can't help either...

Triple mixed metaphor strikes back

I blogged a while back about a triple mixed metaphor from one of our senior writers.

The same writer has done it again!

Operators will be buried under a mountain of data, glued to their PCs trying to unravel the mysteries of their operation

It would be difficult to unravel anything while buried under a mountain and glued to a PC... And I wouldn't mind all these metaphors so much if they weren't such cliches.

Triple mixed metaphor

A great triple mixed metaphor from one of our writers.

Apparently, our publication is "sounding like a scratched record" while the government "holds its sword aloft" and the industry in question "prepares to swallow the bitter pill".

OK, so one of them is a simile – but still not bad for one paragraph.