New York poet, editor, and raconteur Ben Downing got the ball rolling with help from Jeremy Axelrod and Jeff Greggs.  This is his introduction.

Christopher Hitchens mentions in Hitch-22 that he and his friends once amused themselves by coming up with synonyms for “cruising for a bruising” (the four he names are “angling for a mangling,” “aiming for a maiming,” “strolling for a rolling,” and “thirsting for a worsting”). It set me to thinking, and last night two friends got into the act. Here’s what we’ve produced so far. Will you please add to the list? I guess we’ve probably covered most of the obvious ones, but there seems to be no limit to the theme, and I’m curious to see just how far such nonsense can be pushed.

Here are the ones the original trio came up with:

Provoking a choking

Calling for a mauling

Clamoring for a hammering

Inviting a biting

Campaigning for a braining

Yearning for a burning

Spoiling for a boiling

Requesting a molesting

Inching toward a lynching

Riding for a genociding

Bleating for a beating

Heading for a shredding

Leaning toward a guillotining

Facilitating a debilitating

Flirting with a hurting

Baying for a flaying

Aching for a breaking

Drilling for a killing

Howling for a a disemboweling

Sledding for a beheading

Urging for a purging

Moaning/phoning for a stoning

Angling for a strangling

Shopping for a dropping

Ordering a quartering

Begging for an egging

Encouraging a scourging

Speeding for a bleeding

An international group then began to pile more and more on. Here are the results:

Aiming for a laming

Angling for a dangling

Beckoning for a reckoning

Blogging for a flogging

Bounding for a pounding

Chomping for a stomping

Rushing for a crushing

Sliding for a chiding

Coasting for a roasting

Courting a waterboarding

Drifting to a fisting

Eagerly awaiting a defenestrating

Hastening toward a chastening

Limning for a rimming

Loitering for a goitering

Lurching for a birching

Messing with the dressing

Pining for an unbinding

Prowling for a jowling

Pumping for a dumping

Rambling for a scrambling

Roiling for a broiling

Rooting for a booting

Rooting for a shooting

Rushing to a crushing

Sailin’ for a Palin

Sailing for an impaling

Scavenging for a ravaging

Screaming for a creaming

Shopping for a chopping

Spelunking for a dunking

Sporting for a quartering

Starving for a carving

Stoking for a poking

Tipping for a dipping

Trawling for a mauling

Tunneling for a pummeling

Yammering for a hammering

Yelling for a shelling

Yipping for a snipping

Got one you’d like to share? Send ’em in!