Kill-two-birds-with-one-stone Sentence Examples

“Just let dead dogs sleep!” you yell, slamming the door as the perfect end to your perfect comeback. But just as that door swings shut, you wonder “Was that the right way to say it?” Nope, it’s definitely not the right way to say it. You’ve mixed up “let sleeping dogs lie” and “beating a dead horse,” and now your perfect comeback is a messy malaphor — also known as a mixed metaphor or proverb. Oops.

A figure of speech is a word or phrase that possesses a separate meaning from its literal definition. It can be a metaphor or simile designed to make a comparison. It can be the repetition of alliteration or the exaggeration of hyperbole to provide a dramatic effect. There are a wealth of these literary tools in the English language.