Damp Squid: The top 10 misquoted phrases in Britain. British people become tongue-tied over the most simple everyday phrases, with "damp squib" being the one that most of us get wrong, a survey ...

Example usage: “After all that planning, Carly’s birthday party was a total damp squib.” A pug, possibly disheartened by a Damp Squib Event. (Getty Images/Allison Michael Orenstein) It’s hard not to ...

THE most commonly misheard sayings include ‘scapegoat’, ‘damp squib’ and being on ‘tenterhooks’.A poll, of 2,000 adults, found ‘wriggle. Jump directly to the content.

The movie was a damp squib. I was surprised to learn that it had won three Oscars. The word ‘squib’ began to be used in the 1500s to refer to a firecracker.