I heard about this expression last Saturday at a party.

Problem:
The second word is incorrect.

Explanation:
My friend Nickie F. sent me more information about this expression.

She said that a co-worker was discussing possible scenarios to resolve an ongoing HR issue when the co-worker said, “If worst comes to shove, then that is what we’ll have to do.”

The second word, as many readers will recognize, should be “push” instead.

The expression “If push comes to shove”, according to Answers.com, “comes from rugby, where, after an infraction of rules, forwards from each team face off and push against one another until one player can kick the ball to a teammate and resume the game.”

And its figurative use — that is, its use outside of rugby — dates back to the 1950s.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “If push comes to shove” — 155,000 matches
• “If worst comes to shove” — 344 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct expression versus the incorrect expression by a ratio of 451-to-1, which is excellent.

Solution:
“If push comes to shove, …”

I noticed this a week ago.

I was stepping through television channels, looking for something good to watch, when I saw what clearly was a religious TV program.

A woman was speaking directly into the camera, and “Pastor Preasha Hilliard” appeared as part of the banner at the bottom of the TV screen.

I do not know whether Pastor Hilliard was given that name as a child or she chose that name later in life.

But you have to admit that Preasha sounds a lot like “preacher”.

I do not believe that it is a coincidence that Preasha is involved with preaching.

Names mean things.

I saw this in a corporate announcement.

Problem:
The writer mixed metaphors.

Explanation:
The full sentence was “If we all row in the same directions, we will ultimately climb the mountains and be successful.”

Beyond this conditional sentence’s use of the plural “directions” where the singular “direction” was required (as discussed in yesterday’s post), there is a problem with the “If” clause matching the implied-“then” clause.

Given the target audience, I doubt that the writer was referring to some sort of extreme adventure such as uphill kayaking.

So it makes no sense to the average reader to climb a mountain by rowing.

The solution comes from making a water-related reference (e.g., to a lake) in the implied-“then” clause.

Solution:
“If we all row … we will cross the lake …”