Flood defence staff and floating voters

In case you missed last night's News Quiz on BBC Radio 4, the opening newspaper report is well worth listening to for another triggered metaphor worth adding to those mentioned in my last post about people being in the same boat and out of their depth in their comments on the flooded Somerset Levels:

"From the Guardian G2: 'About 550 flood defence staff are threatened with redundancy. Chris Smith hopes that, with an election around the corner, the views of floating voters might well force a change of heart.'"

Metaphors from the flooded Somerset Levels playing field


Somerset Levels

The Sky News website has been reporting some linguistically interesting comments on the floods on the Somerset Levels (above).

According to Gavin Sadler, a member of campaign group Flooding on the Levels Action Group (FLAG): "We were in the same boat last year and were told it was a one in a 100-year flood - now it's happened again."

Meanwhile,  shadow environment secretary Maria Eagle told Sky's Murnaghan programme "The Environment Secretary appears to me to be out of his depth. He's just not taking it seriously".

'Triggered metaphors' are close relations of 'triggered puns', on which I've blogged previously from time to time and on which you can see more HERE and HERE.

Needless to say, contributions of similar examples are always welcome ...