Metaphors, oxymorons, diascopes, and poem
By Chuck Wiser, I write the words to share what my eyes see and my heart feels
Often times when I am pre-thinking my Wramblings writings, I have a starting topic in mind. Nearly as often, I change my mind as soon as the words start to flow. I was, and may still be, going to include some metaphors in today’s writings. Nearly every time I think of the word metaphor, I think to my myself: “what is a meta for?” using the phonetic equivalence of two separate sound-like words. So…What is a Meta for? According to Dictionary.com Meta means; a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, with the meanings “after,” “along with,” “beyond,” “among,” “behind,” and productive in English on the Greek model: metacarpus; metagenesis. What does metaphor mean? From the same source, a metaphor is: “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.” My interpretation, recollection and intended use of a metaphor uses a phrase that contains components of real quotes or sayings but with differing words, which distort or twist the original definition. It is usually most effective with irony or sarcasm and is humorous in interpretation.
Some of my examples: “A stitch in time…saves using a zipper.”; or “The night is darkest before the lights get turned on” would or could be said metaphorically:
When the subject of metaphors is raised, the one person most often attributed with some of the best is Yogi Berra. People often wonder “out loud” if he was doing it intentionally or if he was just a little communicatively challenged. Yogi’s sayings are also called “paradoxical” sayings and a couple include: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Or: “You can observe a lot by just watching.” My favorite is: “Baseball is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical.” Speaking of a paradox, my definition of that is “Two identical short piers side by side.”
Why is “Mystery Money’ in my title? This topic was prompted by my recent receipt of a mysterious email notification that I had $83.66 deposited into my PayPal account as a Microsoft Cashback. At first, I thought it was a scam of some kind. I opened my PayPal account and sure enough there was a deposit in that amount. It is a mystery to me. My closest recollection of anything remotely related to the possibility of something like that is having received occasional notices that “such and such” could add to my Microsoft Cashback if I did something. I “musta.”
And learn again I did! In the above, playing around with metaphors I ran across another word which upon investigation, enlightened me. I’m not sure it is a word that would ever be used in casual conversation, but we often utilize Collocations in our conversations, paralleling the previous topic describes things that we habitually do in our speaking. When you use common terms nearly every day you state the words in a typical paired fashion. You would say pass the “salt and pepper” you likely say it just like that, and not “pepper and salt.” Other examples of daily speech where you co-locate related paired words are: “bread and butter”; peanut butter and jelly; and vice versa, or versa vice as I say it. Terms like that are called Irreversible Binomials.
Another common term probably reversible in the way many say it, was included in a song sung by Cole Porter in the 1932 musical Gay Divorce. The song uses the term “Night and Day,” pronounced in that order, all the way through the song until the last stanza when it is sung…
🎶🎶“And this torment won’t be through, Till you let me spend my life making love to you, Day and Night, Night and Day 🎶🎶.
The better part of my past two days has been spent in the company of a plumber type guy that is part of a local business that specializes in those things. I don’t have his or the company’s permission to name names, so I won’t. His persona is memorable. It was a pleasure having him visit us “professionally.” His heritage did not start here but he has assimilated completely. It was a joy listening to his slightly accented voice as we chatted about anything and everything while he was here. If anyone is ever in need of quality “plumbing” assistance contact me privately and I will give you the company name. He was referred to me by another friend who recommended him a year or so ago when I had an earlier plumbing job.
I included my Table of Contents note today so I can share the writing of it with you again. I not only love writing, in the composition sense but also writing, as in my Table of Contents note, and in my daily “Journal.” I was planning on mentioning the technically correct terminology specificity of the term “writing” and “lettering” anyway, but a couple of hours ago I had stopped by the bank and the cashier was making a note, taking down some information I gave her. I complimented her on her writing, and she replied that she liked “printing.” Ever the one to offer a teaching moment I told her that I used to tell my students that technically they couldn’t “print” without a machine. What she was doing was considered “lettering” if it was done by hand. She shared with me that she had been told that by someone else before. I letter when I write unless it is cursive. It is my understanding that they don’t even teach cursive anymore.
Grammar Groans: Just wondering, but what relationship do eager and meager have that makes them have basically the same root word? Most people realize that words or phrases made of contradictory terms like bittersweet, cruel kindness, only choice, and freezer burn. Are called oxymorons. Bet you didn’t know that the preceding list was oxymora, as they formed a multiple list of oxymorons, or oxymora which made it the plural of oxymoron.
Words like had, and is, that are repeated in succession in a sentence like the word had in the sentence “I had had to check my terminology” or, the word is is another example, although adding a comma between them helps but is not necessary. They are awkward but correct and can properly be side by side repeated. Writers sometimes change the phrasing such that it avoids the pairing of the identical words. These words that double are technically called Diacopes. By the way, the auto-defect checker suggests that the “is” combination above should drop the second is. The problem with that is that it makes a confusing sentence as the sentence would then read “…the word is another example, although…” Having dropped the second “is” What word does the sentence refer to? These words get into the English language maze of “past perfect verb” or one of those “past perfect participle pluperfect, or whatever funny words like that mean. I’ve often had a “dangling participle.” Words like that made English haters, the haters of our language. I still cringe when I hear or see a sentence that starts; “I seen…”
I wrote this poem a few years ago inspired by one of the many local photographers whose photographs take us to places where we cannot visit every day, but they seem to. In this case it was a John Kucko photo, who I reached out to for permission to use the photo to make my poem many folds more than the number of words written therein. The March winds have not yet beaten us into submission, nor is it likely that they will as this unusually mild winter stays with us for a few more days.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns or writing topics, please reach out to me directly at IM.Wiserdad@gmail.com. Thank you for reading.
