Hedging your bets.

Overheard on a conference call, all within about six minutes, all from the same client. They are fractured in the same way Damon Runyon or Ring Lardner (writers I admire) broke convention:

"We need to do this, not in a hurry but with speed."

"We need to put our best foot forward as soon as we figure out what foot that is."

"If we miss this opportunity, we'll score a big miss."

Here's a post I wrote some years ago about Lardner:

Lardner had a gift of language which seems all but lost today. Probably my favorite sentence in all the world was this simple one from a story called "The Young Immigrants."

"'Shut up,' he explained."

I also loved this from a short story called "The Golden Honeymoon." "Mother sat facing the front of the train as it makes her giddy to ride backwards. I sat facing her, which does not affect me."

I also love this gem:

“He looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered.”