Herculaneum effort

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on April 24, 2005

In Reply to: Herculaneum effort posted by Lynn Myrick on April 24, 2005

: Herculaneum effort is a phrase that seems to combine Herculean, referring to the strentgh of Hercules, and Herculaneum, the city that perished along with Pompeii. Is this display a show of wit, or a gentle malapropism?

We'd need some context to work out whether this was a pun or a malapropism. Unless the remark was about something closely connected with Vesuvius and its environs, it's probably the latter (the more so as Roman Herculaneum was a holiday resort and not proverbial for hard work).