In my paper I will examine the way in which a Romanian idiom (having negative connotations), a se duce pe apa Sâmbetei (literally: “to go down the water of Saturday”) ʻto be wasted’ underwent a formal transformation, namely a substitution, and finally resulted in the phrase a se duce pe apa Dunării (literally: “to go down the water of the Danube”). In this case, as well, one can find in journalistic headlines a series of motivated modifications or adaptations of the respective phrase, according to the topic of the journalistic report.