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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?
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Carpal Tunnel
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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
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Pooh-Bah
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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?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Wordwind, thanks for that informative link!
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Pooh-Bah
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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.
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Carpal Tunnel
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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
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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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?
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Carpal Tunnel
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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".
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Carpal Tunnel
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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?
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Carpal Tunnel
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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.
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