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In reply to:
In a moment I had become aware that we were swine cast before a pearl."
wwh quotes this phrase below the equator.
This is such a lovely rhetorical turn that we may have discussed and I simply was not a good enough student and didn't learn what I should have, but...
What is it called rhetorically when we take a well-known expression and reverse it about? It's very clever, it's commonly used by politicians and comedians alike (and it could be argued that they are one and the same), so I would like to know what they are doing when they do it...
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For openers there's the vice-versa joke. E.G.
He liked to snatch kisses and vice versa.
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Ha!!!!!!!!!! I think that's a bit different from what I was thinking, wwh, but, lordy, lordy, you've brought out a big laugh from me!
When tsuwm or Faldage returns here, we'll get down to what the rhetorical turn is called...
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I am not sure of the term, WW, but, parody and satire come imediately to mind. I can give you a delicious example however, of the exact same thing - 'Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'.  I have seen this turn of phrase commonly used by hacks in cricket reporting. (At least in the Indian pages; that is about the only cricket news I catch up with) Don't know that it is specific to this game; shanks or max might know more.
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It's something of a cliche, particularly beloved of sports writers, certainly not unique to cricket. I believe it was originally used by someone to describe a spectacularly unsuccessful general. I don't know who or which general, though.
Bingley
Bingley
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[quote]I have seen this turn of phrase commonly used by hacks in cricket reporting. (At least in the Indian pages; that is about the only cricket news I catch up with)
Well, you won't be seeing much of it, then. The boys from Bharat have made another another flier, and look like crushing the Aussies in the Boxing Day test. (Please excuse me while I shed a tear for my trans-Tasman neighbours' abject humiliation)
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crushing the Aussies in the Boxing Day test
huh? what! are they repeating Adelaide; am a little behind. Is dear Dravid at it again? Max, those tears are surely croc..come on now, say it's so(rushing off to check...with circley fists and loud joyous whoops...)
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When tsuwm or Faldage return, we'll get down to what the rhetorical turn is called.
Until then, how about inverted metaphor [or "inverted aphorism"]?
"The Inverted Metaphor:
In the inverted metaphor, the primary and secondary subjects are switched in the sentence frame to create an "adjective-noun" construction. Here's an example:
foxy John
and you may snicker because you realize that, in English as in the idioms of other languages as well, "word order" affects "word meaning"--that "John, the fox" doesn't carry quite the same message as "foxy John"!"
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I think satire and parody are much too broad here, maahey, for what has been done with swine before pearl in this instance.
The inverted aphorism takes another track completely.
There are hundreds of rhetorical devices that have very specific functions, and I would suspect that there is a very specific turn for taking a commonly known expression, inverting it, to bring new nuance to the meaning of the tried and true old phrase.
Thanks, grapho, for the suggestion. I'm on hold for this one...
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"on hold"If a single word is required, metaphrasis might be considered [in its secondary meaning]: metaphrasis - metaphrase: .... To manipulate the wording of (a text), especially as a means of subtly altering the sense. But, I hasten to add, Wordwind, that there is not a single word to render "inverted metaphor" [as far as I know*], so why do we 'hold out' for a single word to render "inverted aphorism" - an obvious relation of the "inverted metaphor"? *subject to the illumination of higher authority, of course. Sometimes, less is more, I agree. But, sometimes, less is simply less precise.
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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") ©M-W
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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?
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This time of year...
"A waist is a terrible thing to mind"
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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.
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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.
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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
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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."
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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"?
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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".
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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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...whereas "swine" are people who are morally debased...
Are those who are called "swindlers" doing something other than debasing?
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Swindlers have to be supersalesmen, since they are selling gold plated bricks. A façade of good manners is essential.
The are only swine at heart.
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Swindlers ... are only pigs at heart.How true, wwh. Didja' know, they can put pig parts in human hearts, nowadays, and the human immune system won't reject them. [Recovering patients sometimes squeal a little bit, but that's a reaction to the bill, not the surgery.] But, we shouldn't be too proud of ourselves, wwh. We can put pig in a heart, and save a few lives, but no-one knows how to put heart in a pig. If we could do that, we could save the planet.
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Pigs don't deserve their low status. If given ample living space,they are quite clean. A psychologist told me that they are so smart, they spoil research using them by perceiving researcher's intentions, and devising alternate
solutions.
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Quite true Dr. Bill. My uncles pigs had a large pen and picked one corner for a latrine but left the rest clean. They roll in mud because, having so little hair, they sunburn otherwise. Only if they have no mud and no shade do they roll in excrement. On the other hand (hmmm poor mental image there!) pig poop does smell worse that any other, non-feathered, barnyard resident.
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One thing I discovered about pigs is that they can be a big
help clearing land. When my wife on 3 1/2 acres wanded
a couple acres of stumps and rocks removed, putting the pigs into a quarter of an acre, they dug up enough of roots
that my tractor could pull up whole stump. And the turned up buried stones so I could get them with stone boat.
The goats helped too. There was a tangle of barbed wire,
brambles, vines with thorns,bittersweet, and poison ivy. The goats ate back the green stuff, including poison ivy, exposing wire so I could cut out pieces of it. I wonder if the early settlers used animals to help clear land.
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For a different perspective on pigs, I'd recommend watching a delightful movie - Babe. As regards hygiene associations, I have heard 'filthy swine' or 'dirty swine' as curses, for what *that's worth. Shanks, :-(
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the goats ate back the green stuff, including poison ivyGoats have become eco-lawnmowers. They even eat weed seeds so the weeds don't return. There are even rent-a-goat services. No noisy lawnmowers. No herbicides. No energy consumption, human or otherwise. Suburbanites everywhere are going whole-hog on goats. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001542161_goats18m.html
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Oh, I, too, have heard of the rent-a-goat services! Very funny to consider in their inarguable practicality--and I suppose they would fertilize the lawn while trimming it! Perhaps the more fastidious renters would insist upon diapered goats.
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Here in LA county they have "rent a herd of goats" to eat the brush that otherwise would feed brushfires.I have wondered why they don't do that to kudzu in Georgia.
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Goats like pigs have been getting a bad rap for years. I think it goes back to the "Billy Goat Curse" in 1945. Looks like the year of the goat has finally arrived (albeit somewhat out of sync with the Chinese calendar). Steve Bartman just took the heat off of goats everywhere. Vilified by Cubs fans, he has now become the patron saint of goats. Baatter up. http://www.mvschool.riroe.k12.il.us/headley/Curse.htm
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Dear AS: goats will eat much more woody stuff than sheep, and reach much higher up. And they are not vulnerable to
dogs, as sheep are. I still remember our first goat, out on our front lawn. When attacked by a stray dog, it ran away at high speed, and just as dog began to catch up, turned on a dime and butted the dog unconscious.
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Good point about sheep and dogs, wwh. So true. Of course, if you had a rent-a-sheep operation, you could also throw in a llama to watch over the sheep. Rent-a-Sheep&Llama, Inc.
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if you had a rent-a-sheep operation, you could also throw in a llama to watch over the sheep.This is such a good idea, llamas are already becoming the new sheepdogs, Wordwind. http://www.ida.net/users/SRLlamas/sheep.htmIs a new word on the cusp of emerging? "Sheepllama"?
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Sheep llamas have problems too. One of my wife's friends
got a very painful kick from one. In MA, stray dogs are not very common now. But coyotes are. One of our ewes stupidly lambed way down in back field. A coyote ate half of the lamb.The ewe did not have a mark on her, but never stood up again, and would not drink nor eat. The vet could do nothing, but I got a bill for twice what the ewe was worth.
And what was worse, he could not tell me why. I wondered if there had been a vascular injury to her adrenals.
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The ewe did not have a mark on her, but never stood up again, and would not drink nor eat. The vet could do nothing
I had a little trouble following your ewe story at first, wwh.
I take it a lamb is a baby sheep and the ewe in the story is its mother. It take it the ewe went in search of her baby lamb and found it dead [half-eaten].
Is it possible the ewe died of a broken heart?
Dogs are known to grieve for their deceased owners. I have heard stories, possibly apocryphal, that some mother animals will grieve for a dead offspring.
Is this possible with sheep?
Evidently, your vet didn't think so or he wouldn't have charged you so much for doing nothing. [I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, of course.]
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Ewe!, how ever did you make it to journeyman, with out not knowing ram, ewe, and lamb!
it is a semi secret, but everyone on this board has a sheepish tendencies.. (you do know what 'faldage' is don't you?--have you ever looked up the word?)
and many here could easily wear the silly sweat shirts that proclaim Ewes not fat, ewes fluffy!(me for sure!)
and many, many, many of us have 'sculpted' sheep (a small knick knack sort of thing)--all most all of them are different breeds-- its a secret little fetish we all have somehow 'acquired'.
we have had threads on Merino sheep and alcoholic sheep, (who were bottle fed, and before they were fully weaned, they discovered bottled beer, and never wanted to be weaned!)
yes, rams are adult males, ewes are adult females, lambs are young sheep under a year of age, and wethers are neutered males.. (as in a bellwether).
we are a sheepish bunch.. (as the boys from oz say about the kiwi's, (and vis a versa) and everyone says about the scots)
but we are a rare breed of sheep-- like the kind of sheep that were found on episodes of Monty Python.. wicked sheep, flying sheep, trecherous sheep.. We are very sheepish!-so watch out!
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Ewe!, how ever did you make it to journeyman, with out not knowing ram, ewe, and lamb!Sorry, of Troy. I never got past "Ba Ba black sheep". Re: We are very sheepish!-so watch out!Thank you for your shepherdly interest. With you at my side, I will never have to watch out for a wolf in sheep's clothing. Still, my question was sincere. I wonder if an ewe can die of a broken heart.
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Dear Grapho: with regard to that ewe that had coyote eat half of the newborn lamb, she went into shock. "Shock" is a medical term for vascular collapse, which is so complicated I had a hundred page book just on the one topic. When a lion
trips and kills a wildebeest, the prey becomes unable to struggle almost immediately, well before having any important structured damaged. It makes them suffer less.
Wofahulicodoc could tell us more about this.
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