A
mixture of prize-ring and battlefield.
In the following extract from a speech it is difficult to be sure how
many times metaphors are mixed; readers versed in the mysteries of
oscillation may be able to decide:
_No society, no community, can place its house in_ _such a
condition that it is always on a rock, oscillating between
solvency and insolvency. What I have to do is to see that
our house is built upon a solid foundation, never allowing
the possibility of the Society's life-blood being sapped.
Just in proportion as you are careful in looking after the
condition of your income, just in proportion as you deal
with them carefully, will the solidarity of the Society's
financial condition remain intact. Immediately you begin to
play fast and loose with your income the first blow at your
financial stability will have been struck._
A real poet losing himself in the _meshes_ of a foolish _obsession_.
Johnson tore the _hearts_ out of books ruthlessly in order to extract
the _honey_ out of them expeditiously. Are we to let the _pendulum_
swing back to the old _rut_? Those little houses at the top of the
street, _dwarfed_ by the _grandiloquence_ on the opposite side, are
too small, too.
3. Self-consciousness and Mixed Metaphor.
The gentlemen of the Press regularly devote a small percentage of
their time to accusing each other of mixing metaphors or announcing
that they are themselves about to do so (What a mixture of metaphors!
If we may mix our metaphors.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25