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#118239 12/26/03 04:04 PM
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hypallage - Shifting the application of words. Mixing the order of which words should correspond with which others.
e.g.,
Come stay with me and dine not.
Darksome wandering by the solitary night (instead of "Solitary wandering by the darksome night")

- Silva Rhetoricae

: an interchange of two elements in a phrase or sentence from a more logical to a less logical relationship (as in "a mind is a terrible thing to waste" for "to waste a mind is a terrible thing") İM-W


#118240 12/26/03 05:18 PM
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"a mind is a terrible thing to waste" [becomes] "to waste a mind is a terrible thing"

An excellent example, tsuwm. Certainly worth waiting for.

Less hypallagically, perhaps, but more graphically, could it also be called a transfiguration of speech?

#118241 12/26/03 05:24 PM
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This time of year...

"A waist is a terrible thing to mind"



#118242 12/26/03 05:40 PM
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"A waist is a terrible thing to mind"

"Waste not, want not" is good advice for your larder, but only lard for your waist.


#118243 12/26/03 05:48 PM
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Thanks, tsuwm, for that... Hypallage seems to cover many applications of inversions, but it certainly does cover we were swine cast before a pearl.


#118244 12/27/03 10:41 AM
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Alas no. The old pair of Hayden and Ponting have turned things around agaqin. Unless Kumble comes good tomorrow (or tonight for us), and Sachin finally plays the sort of innings he can, it looks like India are up against it this time. 'Spity. It would have been such fun if Tug's final series had been characterised throughout by Buchanan's melancholy 'unbaggygreen' spirit. (Can we arrest him for criminal damage to the language?)

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#118245 12/27/03 01:28 PM
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Pretty, petite Dorothy Parker, a drama critic for Vanity Fair, did not look poisonous. But at the Round Table, she was the acknowledged master of the put-down. "Age before beauty," Clare Boothe Luce once remarked as she invited Parker to proceed her; "pearls before swine," the latter supposedly retorted as she swept through the doorway. Alexander Woollcott called her an odd "combination of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth."


#118246 12/28/03 03:17 PM
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swine cast before a pearl

This thread began with the hypallage above, which juxtaposes "swine" and "pearls".

But I remember the 'obverse' as "casting one's pearls before pigs" [not "swine"].

Which leads me to wonder:

Is there any substantive difference in meaning between the word "pigs" and the word "swine" which would account for the fact that "pigs" [and "hogs"] are people who overindulge themselves [usually with food], whereas "swine" are people who are morally debased, although not necessarily gluttonous or overweight?

Is it simply a matter of 'sound' rather than meaning alone?

For example, would you say that the word "swine" attaches itself more easily to the imagery of a barnyard befouled with excrement than does the word "pig" or "hog"?

Or can it be that "swine" are more deserving of opprobrium than "pigs" and "hogs"?


#118247 12/28/03 03:44 PM
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From the Internet:
The word pig has many origins. It comes from the Anglo Saxon word pecga, and the Log German word bigge, both meaning pig. The Medieval Dutch words were bigge, big and finally, pigge, which became the Middle English pigge. Now, "pig" is used to describe a young swine, or a swine in general.

I can't find it on the Internet, but "swine" has to be from
Latin "sus".

#118248 12/28/03 06:36 PM
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Is there any substantive difference in meaning between the word "pigs" and the word "swine"
Interesting thought, grapho. I'm not sure there is a "correct" answer, when you're referring to people. They're both usually intended as insults; I feel safe saying that. Possibly it depends on context, and the user; whether there would be cultural and/or regional consistencies, I have no idea. To me, calling someone a pig (not that I ever would, except as a joke sure to be understood) would imply either that I thought they were dirty or greedy. I tend to agree with you in that swine would more likely be applied to someone who had done wrong to another.


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