"It's already burst, Kolt," Yorvet replied. "your sad attempts at keeping the bubble from fraying when it's already popped are pathetic."
"So is everything else I do." Fraying bubbles? That was such a catachresitic concept. Kolt shook his head, sheathing his knife. The only entertainment he had these days was being annoying to Yorvet. Why he put up with it, Kolt didn't know. "I'm going to go get your sad excuse for food around here." he turned away. "Let me guess. Be back in twenty minutes?" It wasn't like Yorvet would let him out of his sight for too long. He felt like Yorvet watched him while he slept, which was creepy. Even though he couldn't prove it.
Catachresis -1: use of the wrong word for the context 2: use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech.
Added Info -As you might have guessed, "catachresis" is a word favored by grammarians. It can sometimes be merely a fancy way to disparage uses the grammarian finds unacceptable--as when Henry Fowler insisted in 1926 that the "mutual" in "our mutual friend" was a catachresis. (Fowler preferred "common," but "mutual" does have an established sense which is correct in that context.) The first recorded use of "catachresis" dates to 1553, and it has been used to describe (or decry) misuses of words ever since. "Catachresis" comes to us by way of Latin from the Greek word katachresis, which means "misuse."
No comments:
Post a Comment