colors (colours) » collars

Chiefly in:   with flying collars

Classification: English

Spotted in the wild:

  • She has passed the frisking with flying collars. (Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Bantam Spectra, NY, 1993 (13th printing), p. 280)
  • Promising local skater Amritansh Sachdeva and Baibhav Nagaich lived upto the expectation of the selectors and returned home with flying collars winning gold in their respective age group in the recently concluded International Roller Skating Championship held at Dhaka (Bangladesh) from April 14-17, organised by Roller Skating Federation. (Central Chronicle, April 22, 2006)
  • Hey Rua thanks for the msg, I am so glad you finished your finals with flying collars, but then I was not that worried, some one as passionate and dedicated as you would not settle for anything but the best. (myspace.com, comment, 25 Feb 2007)
  • Anyways, she passed the California Bar with flying collars and now can be called Attorney at Law (I even changed her name in my cell phone appropiately). (personal blog, May 22, 2006)

Analyzed or reported by:

Michael Quinion writes in his World Wide Words newsletter:

> Neal Stephenson’s SF novel Snow Crash includes the line, “She has passed the frisking with flying collars.” This was surely a mistake, but it’s a surprisingly common one, with dozens of examples to be found online. The image is delightful, but it’s sad that so many people seem not to have heard of “flying colours”, because they don’t associate “colours” with the bravely fluttering flags of a military force. To finish a battle with your colours still flying implies that your force has survived intact.

_With flying collars_, on the other hand, goes rather well with the vigorous vitality of the triumphant roller skaters. The connotations aren’t that far apart, come to think of it.

Many thanks to wiredfool, who was kind enough to look up the Neal Stephenson cite for me.

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2007/06/04 |

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