round the bend, lilt, “The hell you say.” bending legal machinery to his advantage

Roger Stone: President Trump’s commutation of the sentence of his former campaign adviser for obstructing an investigation into Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign was the latest example of Mr. Trump bending legal machinery to his advantage.


Others thought he was round the bend. When he decided to give up his job at Milliken Carpet in LaGrange, Georgia to set up a 15-person carpet company, and was clearing out his desk that February of 1973, two colleagues looked in. “We don’t think you can do this,” they told him. He replied, in his languid, ever-courteous southern lilt, “The hell you say.” Fifteen years later his company, renamed Interface, was the biggest carpet-tile maker on the planet.

lilt

• [lílt]
• 
  

[名][U][C]軽くはずむような調子［抑揚］；軽快な歌［曲, 動作］.

━━[動](自)(他)（…を）軽快な調子で歌う［演奏する, 話す］((out))；軽快に動く.

lilt・ing

[形]軽くはずむような.



around the bend

1. Around a curve or corner on a road or pathway, as in Peter's house is just around the bend. Also see around the corner, def. 1.
2. Also, round the bend. Crazy, insane, as in Throwing out that perfectly good steak? Have you gone round the bend? [Colloquial; early 1900s]



idioms:
for the hell of it

1. For no particular reason; on a whim: walked home by the old school for the hell of it.

hell on Informal.

1. Damaging or destructive to: Driving in a hilly town is hell on the brakes.
2. Unpleasant to or painful for.

hell or (or and) high water

1. Troubles or difficulties of whatever magnitude: We're staying, come hell or high water.

hell to pay

1. Great trouble: If we're wrong, there'll be hell to pay.

like hell Informal.

1. Used as an intensive: He ran like hell to catch the bus.
2. Used to express strong contradiction or refusal: He says he's going along with us-Like hell he is!

[Middle English helle, from Old English.]