Re: OT: "literally"

[Michael Norman michael.norman@xxxxxxxx]

At 07:08 PM 6/8/2007, Patricia M. Godfrey wrote:
> > Almost as if we no longer trust our tropes.
> Now there I think you're on to something. If you can find a copy of
> Wilson Follett's Modern American Usage, read what he says about
> metaphor: an excessive, and mindless, reliance on it is poisoning
> our ability to tell the difference between plain statement and trope.
Yes, have had Fowler on the shelf -- and have tried to get students
to read it -- for years. I could quote him on the uses of metaphor ad
nauseum, but to serve your point (a call for clarity and simple
advice to the writer) he suggests that the problem is "the harm"
metaphor "does to thought."
"What is the test," he asks, "--hence the value--of metaphor, if the
words are never literal and exact?"
Michael Norman