Mea Culpa: Fighting over Hillary Clinton’s memoir of US politics

Breathing new life into an old cliché, plus a tautology and several devotional metaphors in this week’s Independent

Hillary Clinton signing copies of her book. (AP)

Hillary Clinton is booked to appear at the Cheltenham Literature Festival and at the Southbank Centre in London next month to promote her new book. David Usborne, our US columnist, wrote last weekend that “some Britons will be fighting hand over fist for a first-hand taste of what US politics is like from a woman they’ve watched from across the pond for so long”.

Hand over fist? A reader wrote to ask if this was the right phrase. My view is that it most certainly is. It is a relic preserved in what Guy Keleny, my predecessor, used to call the Museum of Ancient Metaphoric Curiosities. It probably comes from the action of sailors pulling on ropes, and means quickly. But it is usually an empty cliché, whereas here the writer has breathed life back into it, conjuring up an image of people fighting to get their hands on copies of the book.

“Fighting hand over fist for a first-hand taste.” Read it aloud. That is poetry, that is. Well done, Mr Usborne.

Unmentionable in the room: We called the planned new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point a possible “white elephant” again this week. The origin of the phrase is the legend of Siamese kings who would punish over-mighty servants by giving them a present of a white, or holy, elephant, the upkeep of which would ruin them. But it has become an overused metaphor for any project that would be expensive and poor value for money. That is the least interesting bit of the original story, so perhaps we should retire this elephant from the circus.

Prepared for time travel: The campaign against tautology continues. We wrote about electric cars this week and said: “Even with the best forward planning it is virtually impossible to make sure you have enough charge when you need it.” What other kinds of planning are there?

Devotional metaphor: As does the campaign against the metaphorical use of icon and iconic. Thirteen uses this week, including “iconic scents”, an “iconic rock” (not Gibraltar but Es Vedra in Ibiza), some “iconic gas holders” by the Oval cricket stadium and some “unlikely style icons” including Jarvis Cocker and Jeremy Corbyn.

Luckily three of the uses were approved by the authorities. One was of 14th- and 15th-century Russian devotional paintings; another of a wooden icon in Chartres Cathedral and the third was about the symbols on the new iPhone.