|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Ah! You've hit the nail on its mist-enshrouded head, Maa'! The absence of one very simple three-lettered word generated so many unnecessary ones, mine included. Now that's that, huh?  Edit: But it's still a strange metaphor. There are those mists of coincidence already hovering out there somewhere in Coincidence World. And there's the grammarian tracking down a usage and its pedigree--and his search? His delvings into some usage evaporates. OK. It evaporates. And the place into which it evaporates is this misty area of coincidence. This is a misty metaphor and I am blind inside of it. Wordminstrel: Would you please either PM me the context out of which the metaphor came or paste it here?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
|
|
OP
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
Would you please either PM me the context out of which the metaphor came or paste it here?
I went looking for the passage when you first asked about it several days ago, WW, but I couldn't find it. I thought it was in "breathing" ... but no luck finding it there.
In any event, the author of this "Faldage" has never denied its provenance, and I quoted it faithfully, word for word, at the top of this thread, thus:
it evaporated into the mists of coincidence
Personally, I don't understand what the fuss is all about.
Suffice it to say that a metaphor which hangs on a thread of contentious, technical explication is a failed metaphor, even if it isn't a mixed metaphor.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
a metaphor which hangs on a thread of contentious, technical explication is a failed metaphor
Well, this certainly isn't a blovian thread.
Or is it?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
To bloviate a bit more as any good wordwind would:
Well, I've been won over. The more I think about the metaphor, the more I believe it works. There's coincidence and there's coincidence: There's coincidence that is surprising--even startling in its aura of pretermined inevitability (Jungian synchronicity)--and there's coincidence that we say "Pish-posh!" to. It seems to me that this grammarian was checking out pedigree of some usage, and reached a point at which that search evaporated into that area of coincidence that was misty at best--the "pish-posh" sort of coincidence that lacks stability and a pause-for-thought about inevitability.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>I went looking for the passage...
here it is in all of its turbidity:
a general rule that transitive verbs are regular and intransitive verbs irregular
Just to muddy the water, I spent a little time researching the history of this rule and the more I looked the more it seemed to evaporate into the mists of coincidence.
-joe (a taxonomist is a terrible thing) friday
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Thanks, joe. I've now got a clear mental image of this turbid activity:
The grammarian, in his hip boots, stomping all around in the muddiest waters of research, realizes at some point in his stomping that these muddy waters are evaporating into the mists of coincidence.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
|
|
OP
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
Well, I've been won over. The more I think about the metaphor, the more I believe it works.
At last, it seems, we have wrestled this murky metaphor to the ground.
Perhaps, in the process, we have discovered a "new world" of metaphors, and Faldage has become our Magellan.
In the past, writers used metaphors like a magnifying glass to elucidate difficult ideas. A good metaphor was seen as one which made the arcane, the abstruse, even the ineffable, accessible to ordinary readers.
What we have discovered is a strain of metaphor which confounds the reader at first blush, and obliges him or her to contemplate the navel of the universe, so to speak.
If Faldage has the distinction of being our Magellan in this "new world" of metaphors, may I claim the distinction of naming it? Inspired by the passage which follows, I christen this variant the talmudic metaphor.
"In the Talmudic method of text study, the starting point is the principle that any text that is deemed worthy of serious study must be assumed to have been written with such care and precision that every term, expression, generalization or exception is significant not so much for what it states as for what it implies."
There may not be much call for "talmudic metaphors" in our everyday world but, somewhere, at the boundary between "what is", and "what is not" [just as we deciphered at the boundary between evaporation and condensation], Schroedinger's cat will always land on its feet.
There is something reassuring about this. At least, for me.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
a general rule that transitive verbs are regular and intransitive verbs irregular
Just to muddy the water, I spent a little time researching the history of this rule and the more I looked the more it seemed to evaporate into the mists of coincidence.
Ah!...vis-a-vis "the mists of descriptivism."
seeding-the-tumult-and-taking-a-front-row-seat e
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
"...text that is deemed worthy of serious study..."
- and - somewhere, at the boundary between "what is", and "what is not" [just as we deciphered at the boundary between evaporation and condensation], Schroedinger's cat will always land on its feet.Not that I'd personally question anything's "worthiness of study" (especially the "navel of the universe"), nor would I challenge 'nature' by ever buttering the toast tied to the feet of Schroedinger's cat and hang it by the tail over a bottomless pit, but to insinuate that there may not be much call for so called "talmudic metaphors" (even without its capitilization  ) seems to be coming from a gestalt of surrealism... not that there's anything *wrong with that. much need for, however, I would contemplate directly.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
|
|
OP
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
coming from a gestalt of surrealism-and- The more I think about the metaphor, the more I believe it worksI believe we are all on the same page here, musick. I also agree with WW that subscribing to the metaphor in question is more a matter of 'belief' than reason. BTW I have not capitalized "talmudic" in "talmudic metaphors" out of respect for Talmudic studies.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,810
Members9,187
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
846
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
