Re: OT: Books on writing?

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

David Auerbach wrote:
> even dead metaphors (or even simply terms with multiple meanings) keep
> their etymological and semantic echoes which can clang when piled into
> the small chamber of a sentence.
Exactly. Fowler called it "battles of dead metaphors" and cited
as an example "it is impossible to crush the government's aim."
Tools by itself may be moribund if not dead, but plunk it down
among launching, family, backbone, and pipeline, and what you
have is a gosh-awful mess.
And the etymological and semantic echoes are very important.
Unfortunately, since the majority know zilch about etymology,
most people are deaf to them. Witness the use of comprise to mean
constitute--something that puts me in a fury, because I
immediately hear compris (Fr.) and compehensus (Lat.) echoing.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx