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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
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So I said, `I'm going to write a letter. The world is getting
too sensitive. Anybody who thinks otherwise needs to have
his dog-gone brain examined.' `Good idea,' said my
sensitive friend, `but avoid using that metaplasm...'"
Richard A. Zidonis, Proper Address of the Question, The
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), Nov 8, 1991.
The only possible metaplasm I see in the quote is "dog" substituted for "God". Is not "sensitive" friend
then hypersensitive to object to such a substitution?
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Joined: Jan 2001
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
I thought it was the whole word, dog-gone, substituting for god-damn. Isn't it?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Bean: the definition of "metaplasm" seems to apply only to words, not to phrases.
And the change from "damned" to "gone" seems far too extensive to be metaplasm.
Also, "metathesis" would be more accurate for change from "God" to "dog"/
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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you're on the beam, Bean. U.S. slang. [Generally taken as a deformation of the profane God damn: cf. dang, darn. But some think the original form was dog on it, to be compared with pox on it! etc.]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"metathesis" would be more accurate for change from "God" to "dog"
A change in a word, for example by adding, omitting, inverting, or transposing its letters, syllables, or sounds.
From which it would seem that metathesis is one form of metaplasm. The use of gone for damn(ed) would follow from the replacement of the d at the end of God with the g of dog thus suggesting the d of damn(ed) be replaced with a d. But *gamn(ed) isn[t a word, so the word gone is used instead. Metaplasm at three different points in one two-word phrase.
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