Short answer: a mixed metaphor joins two images that do not fit together, so a reader who pictures the sentence sees something impossible. Typical mixed metaphor examples: "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it" (burning bridges plus crossing one), "this ticking time bomb will snowball," and "she stepped up to the plate and laid her cards on the table." The fix is almost always the same: keep one image and drop the other, or drop the figure and say it plainly. Below are before and after fixes, the reason these slip in, and the famous deliberate case in Hamlet.
What counts as a mixed metaphor
A metaphor asks the reader to see one thing as another. A mixed metaphor asks them to see it as two other things at once, and the two pictures clash. A bomb does not snowball. A baseball batter does not hold playing cards.
The clash has to be visible to count. "The head of the department put his foot down" mixes two body parts, but nobody objects, because both are dead metaphors that no longer call up a picture. A mixed metaphor is a problem only when at least one image is still alive enough to be seen.
Register and region: "mixed metaphor" is a neutral term used in the US and the UK. Mixed metaphors themselves turn up most in speech, business writing, sports commentary and political rhetoric, where people talk quickly in stock phrases.
Mixed metaphor examples, with before and after fixes
The examples below are typical of what editors see. They are our own illustrations of common patterns, not quotations from named speakers.
| Mixed metaphor | The two images | Fix 1: keep one image | Fix 2: say it plainly |
|---|---|---|---|
| We'll burn that bridge when we come to it. | Burning bridges; crossing a bridge | We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. | We'll deal with that when it happens. |
| This project is a ticking time bomb that will snowball. | A bomb; a rolling snowball | This project is a ticking time bomb. | This project's problems will grow fast unless we act. |
| She stepped up to the plate and laid her cards on the table. | Baseball; poker | She stepped up to the plate and swung hard. | She took charge and was honest about the numbers. |
| Our sales funnel is flooded with low-hanging fruit. | A funnel and water; an orchard | Our sales funnel is filling up fast. | We have many easy leads right now. |
| The budget is a black hole we need to iron out. | Astronomy; laundry | The budget is a black hole. | The budget is losing money we cannot trace. |
| He's a loose cannon who's been skating on thin ice. | Artillery on a ship's deck; a frozen pond | He's been skating on thin ice. | He's been taking risks with his job. |
Notice that Fix 2 is often the better one. A plain sentence is rarely worse than a mixed figure, and it is often clearer than a corrected one.
The famous deliberate case: Hamlet's "sea of troubles"
The best-known mixed metaphor in English literature is in Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. The Folger Shakespeare Library's text of Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 (read October 2, 2026), gives the lines as Hamlet weighing whether to suffer "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And, by opposing, end them."
You cannot take up weapons against the sea. That clash bothered Shakespeare's eighteenth-century editors enough that several tried to change the word "sea." In Samuel Johnson's 1765 edition, as transcribed in Jack Lynch's text of Johnson's notes on Hamlet (read October 2, 2026), William Warburton argues that Shakespeare wrote "assail of troubles," meaning an assault, and Johnson notes that "Mr. Pope proposed siege." Johnson then dismissed the whole effort: "I know not why there should be so much solicitude about this metaphor. Shakespeare breaks his metaphors often, and in this desultory speech there was less need of preserving them."
The 1899 Arden edition of Hamlet, as scanned on Wikisource, lists more proposed replacements: "th' assay," "assailing," "assail of" and "the seat." It credits "siege" to Theobald rather than to Pope, so the two references disagree on who suggested it. The Arden note also offers a defense: it cites accounts of the Kelts, Gauls and Cimbri making armed combat with the sea, points to Shakespeare's "sea of joys," "sea of glory" and "sea of care" elsewhere, and argues that a "sea of troubles," as "billows of the war," simply extends the battle image of the speech.
So the line has three readings. To Warburton it was an error to correct. To Johnson it was a mixed metaphor and did not matter. To the Arden editor it was not really mixed at all. A fourth reading is open to any reader: a mind in turmoil does not keep its images tidy, and the clash may be part of the point.
Why mixed metaphors happen
Mixed metaphors are not usually a sign of carelessness with words. They are a sign of not looking at them. Three causes account for most of them.
1. The writer is not picturing anything. George Orwell made this point in "Politics and the English Language" (1946), as published by the Orwell Foundation and read October 2, 2026. Quoting phrases such as "The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song" and "the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot," he concluded that "it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image." If you never see the octopus, you will not notice it singing.
2. Two stock phrases with similar meanings merge. "Burn your bridges" and "cross that bridge when you come to it" share a bridge, so they fuse into "burn that bridge when we come to it." Similar blends produce errors such as "hone in" for "home in," a case our page on hone in vs home in walks through. Our page on commonly misused idioms explains why errors of this type are so predictable.
3. Jargon stacks up. Business and sports writing lean on ready-made figures: funnels, pipelines, game plans, low-hanging fruit, moving the needle. Each one is fine alone. Put three in a sentence and two of them will usually collide.
How to fix a mixed metaphor in five steps
- Read the sentence and picture it literally. This is Orwell's test turned into a habit. If the picture is impossible, something is mixed.
- Name each image's home. Baseball, cards, the sea, the kitchen, the battlefield. Writing the source next to each phrase makes the clash obvious.
- Decide which image does the work. Usually one image carries the meaning and the other is decoration. Keep the one that says something specific.
- Extend or cut. Either carry the kept image through the sentence ("stepped up to the plate and swung hard") or cut the second figure entirely.
- Ask whether you need a figure at all. In reports, instructions and email, the plain version usually wins.
A quick check for editors: highlight every figurative phrase in a paragraph. If the highlights come from more than one source and sit within a sentence or two of each other, read that stretch aloud.
When mixing is fine, or even good
Not every mixed metaphor needs fixing.
- When the images are dead. "The bottleneck is a key issue we need to tackle" combines a bottle, a key and a football tackle, and almost no reader sees any of them. Fixing it would be pedantic.
- When the images are far apart. A ship in one paragraph and a mountain in the next is not a mixed metaphor; it is two metaphors.
- When it is deliberate. Comedy writers mix metaphors on purpose, and a character who mangles idioms tells the reader something about that character. Hamlet's "sea of troubles" shows that a clash can carry meaning in serious writing too.
The test is intent. If the reader would think the clash was planned, it can stay. If they would think you did not notice, fix it.
For more on how fixed phrases build up their images in the first place, see our explainer on where idioms come from.
Frequently asked questions
What is a mixed metaphor?
A mixed metaphor combines two or more images that do not fit together, such as "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it." Pictured literally, the sentence describes something impossible.
What is a famous example of a mixed metaphor?
Hamlet's "to take arms against a sea of troubles" (Act 3, Scene 1) is the best-known. Eighteenth-century editors proposed replacing "sea," and Samuel Johnson replied that "Shakespeare breaks his metaphors often."
Are mixed metaphors grammatically wrong?
No. A mixed metaphor is a problem of imagery, not grammar. The sentence can be grammatically perfect and still make the reader picture something absurd.
How do I fix a mixed metaphor?
Picture the sentence literally, name the source of each image, keep the one that does the work, and cut or rewrite the other. Often the best fix is to drop the figure and say the point plainly.
Is a mixed metaphor ever acceptable?
Yes. Mixing dead metaphors that nobody pictures is harmless, and deliberate mixing can be funny or can show a character's state of mind.