i love the adjective "proverbial". it's only ever deployed on nouns that we already assumed were proverbial.
"the star wars prequels were a train wreck."
oh the humanity! were there any survivors?
"no, sorry, they were a proverbial train wreck."
jesus christ, thanks for the clarification, i was so nervous.
even better is when it's used halfway through a coloquialism. "it was lightning in a proverbial bottle". wait so was the lightning... not also proverbial? the bottle is a metaphor, but the lightning it contains is real, non-metaphorical lightning? are you sure it wasn't proverbial lightning in a proverbial bottle? please clarify
"veritable" also doesn't get off the hook. you can't fool me, i can tell when you just want your sentence to have extra Latin.
