And then a God who really ought not to exist sticks out a great big hand and grabs me by the wrist

[venta]

Why do people say

"That'll go down like a lead balloon"

and mean that the thing in question will go down badly ?

Surely if there's anything a lead balloon will do extremely well, it's go down. Great ideas should be likened to lead balloons.

I propose the phrase

"That'll go down like a helium ferret"

instead.

Comments

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Or maybe it's like "That will go downhill like a lead balloon" - things going downhill generally being a bad thing (in phrase-land, not in real life)