Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Tossing (something) into (something)

In my recent post about the odd things said by baseball broadcasters, I forgot to include this:

Keith Hernandez said (and I don't remember the connotation): "He threw his ring into the hat." Okay, it's an amusing mangling of the phrase "to throw one's hat in the ring". But it's also fun because it seems to work. Though there is no referent for the expression when mangled, the idea of tossing a ring into a hat seems almost sensible.

It made me wonder if Keith's mangled phrase could be put to good use. For instance, it could mean you've proposed marriage to someone. You've "thrown your ring in the hat". You can almost hear someone say to a friend, "So, I hear you've thrown your ring in the hat. Congratulations!"

Okay, okay. So the hat part doesn't work. But I still kinda like it.