Both are used to deprecate tiresomely over-used expressions. Both came from the
printing plate that made printing of many copies possible.
I can not figure out the name of the figure of speech or rhetorical device involved.
Can you?
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htmYou might try this site, wwh. It's been referred to here before. I just read through about 30 terms and couldn't find yours, but there are many there you'd probably enjoy reading through.
Happy hunting,
WW
can not figure out the name of the figure of speech or rhetorical device involved.
It is similar to a simile - but not quite that. A transferred simile?
Wordwind, thanks for that informative link!
Having thought a bit - and also consulted Wordwind's forest of rhetoric (which is well worth wandering through, BTW)
I am coming to the conclusion that to call something a cliché or a stereotype is, in fact, a metaphor.
metaphor
I think it's gone beyond metaphor to transfered meaning. If you don't know the printing meanings it kinda of loses its metaphor qualities
I agree that the original meaning has become obscured by the acceptence and understanding of the metaphor as used in a given context.
But hasn't that happened in other cases? Does an individual's lack of understanding of the basis of a metaphor stop it from being one?
But the examples given by my dictionary seem different: a comparison is spelled out:
metaphor
n.
Fr m=taphore < L metaphora < Gr < metapherein, to carry over < meta, over (see META3) + pherein, to BEAR16 a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another (Ex.: the curtain of night, “all the world‘s a stage”): cf. SIMILE, MIXED METAPHOR
met#a[phor$ic or met#a[phor$i[cal
adj.
met#a[phor$i[cal[ly
adv.
But when I looked at Metaphors in the new site, it gave examples that DO fit:
"Did you land a job today?" "No, not a bite".
So, from your example, wwh, it appears that stereotype and cliché were full-fledged metaphors, but have transpired into something else: a metaphor taken from a previous period of time that has lost the metaphorical connection and stands more on its current definition than on the previous metaphorical connection.
I agree with Faldage that this is something that goes beyond metaphor. It is something that typically happens in language all the time--a word derives its meaning from a metaphorical connection, but, after being in use for a long period, that connection could become generally unknown or forgotten.
It's sweet to rediscover those metaphorical connections--like the one Faldage mentioned this morning that onions had previously meant "large pearls," which is definitely metaphorical. We can look at onions now with new appreciation--it returns us to the poetry implicit in language, don't you think?
Does an individual's lack of understanding of the basis of a metaphor stop it from being one?
Yes! Intrinsic to using the word 'metaphor' is a basis. Without one *it becomes a 'definition' for that individual... IMIO, of course.