Comments on: More Grim Words on the State of the UK Housing Market

By: daveNYC

daveNYC — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:54:00 +0000

Bah, that barely even qualifies to show up on the mixed metaphor index. What you’d need is something like “the tentacles from the US housing crash are derailing an already sinking UK market and taking it behind the woodshed”.

By: Yves Smith

Yves Smith — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:31:00 +0000

That sentence had problems even in English. I used a mixed metaphor. FYI, “taken to the woodshed” is a colorful way of saying “spanked”. The “peanut gallery” is the cheapest seating in a theater. People who sit in the peanut gallery aren’t important. So even though the Fed got a lot of criticism at its conference, it wasn’t from important people.

But to put two images like that in one paragraph, much the less one sentence, is too much.

By: Your prose is nice but hard to read :-)

Your prose is nice but hard to read :-) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:20:00 +0000

Dear Yves,

May I draw your attention to the fact that your blog has many non-English speaking readers? Although I am fluent, I sometimes find your prose hard to decipher. Here is a recent example :

"It appears the US central bank got taken to the woodshed at a conference hosted by the New York Fed for overly aggressive rate cuts, but despite jeering from the peanut gallery, it looks likely that the Fed will hold pat until at least the fall."

This is the ransom of success! I hope you won't find this too frustrating.

A loyal NC reader

By: Richard Kline

Richard Kline — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:11:00 +0000

Not quite China Syndrome, UK res property, but containment in the reactor core is breached, and the facility floor has the consistency of liquifying gorgonzola. Pity those helicopters chuffing about are hoisting paper rather than cement. We need _concrete_ solutions, boys.