Talk:Catachresis

I think this is more an example of definitions shifting over time than of a deliberate out-of-context use of the word "nimrod". I've added examples for two of the senses from Shakespeare. The other two remain as yet unexampled... --Ptomato 02:05, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

+ I met a girl from San Francisco who talked about a venue having a "righteous" sound-system, which seems a good example as it yokes together concepts usually distinct (virtue & party). But doesn't a huge amount of fiction rely on catachresis anyway? Eliot's admonition to "dislocate language into meaning" instructs writers to harness words in new ways to avoid sterile repetition and vivify meaning. [User: Benek]

Leave Shakespeare alone! Rintrah 02:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Would one of my favourite quotes from Futurama be a good example of catachresis: "If we can hit the bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate." - Zapp Branigan

My dictionary says examples of a catachresis would be crayfish, and causeway.

incorrect usage ?
on the front page it mentions our mutual friend" for "our friend in common" as incorrect usage. I believe this is correct usage, mutual friend means friend in common . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.162.57.135 (talk) 19:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm removing 'our mutual friend' from the intro, since it turns out that 58% of the most recent usage panel I could find (2006) support the usage as correct. Further, it was already in fairly common use that way in Dickens' time, which means that the usage has a good 200 years of history behind it by now "which ought to be enough for anybody!". It would be like complaining that 'nice' is REALLY supposed to mean 'stupid' (which it did several hundred years ago), so everyone who uses it as a compliment is committing (a?) catachresis. (Amusingly, the spellchecker is now complaining about 'catachresis'.) --Arvedui (talk) 04:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Incorrect or esoteric definition
"To use an existing word to denote something that has no name in the current language" seems to be a very specific usage. I have left it because I do not know the source or the use, but I would emphasize that this is an esoteric meaning.

Opinion without reference?
"Catachresis is a very common habit, and it is crucial in the evolution of a language, as it helps to overcome the lexical poverty of a language. Catachresis is more a linguistic phenomenon than a figure of speech."

This appears to be an opinion or an unproven hypothesis. I would remove this or move it to another section, and add "According to...".

The Hamlet quotation
To take arms against a sea of troubles is likely a deliberate catachresis, or perhaps not even one at all: Hamlet is talking about futility. Faced with a sea of troubles, taking up a sword and shield is not going to have an effect on the wave that's about to hit you, and the character knows this. It's a straightforward metaphor (not even a mixed metaphor) disguised as a catachresis, I feel. UrbaneLegend 13:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Except that the full quote is 'To take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them'. Hence Hamlet is of the opinion that taking up arms will, in fact, have an effect on the sea of troubles, illogical as this is. I think this is a very good example for this page, though the mixed metaphor has a deeper meaning. Certainly we are to understand that suicide is as peculiar a way of dealing with problems as attacking the sea with a sword would be; but nonetheless Hamlet wishes us to believe that it would be an effective technique, even if the modalities are, by use of a mixed metaphor, deliberately obscured. In this sense it is an unsatisfactory metaphor, and is better considered as catachresis. Happydemic 15:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think there's an issue with having the disclaimer after the quotation. If the Hamlet quotation is indeed to be regarded as a good example of catachresis then the disclaimer explaining why it might not should be removed.  If it is a bad example it should be replaced with another example entirely.  What are people's thoughts on this? 78.33.70.38 (talk) 09:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Additional - I actually like the Zapp Brannigan quote that has been suggested on this talk page - I think it is a perfect example of a mixed metaphor. 78.33.70.38 (talk) 09:32, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I can see both sides here, and I do not think it is a good example for the article at all. --Kelt65 (talk) 17:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Irony and ironic
I think its ironic that ClueBot rejected my edit of an example of Catachresis using a homophone of the term. I would be honored to have my quote next to Shakespeare. "Don't get your panties in a cat of creases." -Sir Mixed Metaphor Dennynorth (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

You're confusing catachresis with malapropism. Which is ironic, but in a way that makes you sound foolish. Not as foolish as it is to think your quote is comparable to Shakespeare's, but close. Brianthegele 15:53, 18 March 2015 (EST)

This word is misused alot. Should we include this word? Like in Alannis Morrisette's Isn't It Ironic, most things she mentions isn't ironic at all. ie. Rain on your wedding day, It's a black fly in your Chardonnay, It's a free ride when you've already paid, It's the good advice that you just didn't take Azn Clayjar 04:31, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Shakespeare
Doesn't the article imply that Shakespeare is misusing language? Rintrah 15:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Superlatives
One frequently encounters misuse of superlatives, e.g., "most unique", "fairly unique", "sort of dead", etc. Shouldn't at least one of these be included in the article as an example of catachresis? &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 22:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Reply: I wouldn't call these catachresis. In any case, they would make the definition of catachresis so broad as to be "virtually meaningless". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.49.1 (talk) 06:37, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Table leg
I don't think this is a good example at all. There are certain core words we learn as infants that sometimes take on a false standing in our view of how words actually function. A young child is quite convinced that a leg is a part of the human body, regardless of whether there is also a much broader conception of leg outside of that context. A far better example would be an "arm of an institution", and I'm not even sure that doesn't have its own context. Institutions also have "branches", but note that the word branch is not corporeal to begin with. If we weren't so anthrocentric, we could refer to fingers as branches of the hand. So how is it that leg is corporeal rather than "something to stand on" in which case a table leg is as good a leg as any? Anthrobias, if you ask me. Interesting that an arch with two ends is not referred to as having legs, because there needs to be some criteria to decide where the legs end and what the legs support begins. I can open up my pocket knife and support it on the tips of three blades. Are those legs? Borderline. If it stands poorly, one might say "one of your 'legs' is too short" raising the eyebrows at legs. However, if I took two such pocket knives and put a small board across them to make a mini sawhorse, the sawhorse improvisation would definitely have six blades for legs. MaxEnt 12:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You said it. In fact this whole article is extremely clumsy, since it seems to say that ALL figurative utterances (metaphors and metonymies) are "errors", and a good many changes in the numbers of semantic features, too, as when pinheaded purists fuss about expressions like "grow smaller", having failed to notice that the verb grow long ago added the feature "or in any other regard" to the original feature "increase in size". (There are reasons for suspecting that prehistorically the root applied only to plants in any case.) Metaphors involving body parts (the eye of a needle, the leg of a journey, the head of the table, the foot of a page, an arm of the sea, the mouth of a river, teeth of a gear, tongue of a glacier) are superabundant and a good many are what are miscalled "faded metaphors": referring to the supporting members of a table as legs isn't really even metaphorical at all: the word now simply means "supporting member of a piece of furniture" (and we don't have any other term for the concept). The same thing applies to metonymies, like hand (of cards) or hand "crew member". Some metonymies have become lexicalized, i.e. the words simply have the metonymic meaning (as in the two hand examplles) but some are basically matters of diction (as when we speak of starting the car when what we're really starting is the motor of it, but no one would want to add "motor" to the lexical definitions of the word car), likewise container-for-the-thing-contained as when we say "Would you like another glass?" when we are really speaking of whatever it was that was IN the glass, which might be water, beer, cranberry juice, Gin, whatever, not matters for a dictionary of meanings but of situations. Similarly irony, in which speaker and hearer understand words as having the reverse of their usual meaning, as in the old jape about "Everyone was in World War Two except the cowardly Swedes and the peace-loving Irish".


 * It is not out of place, by the way, to point out that decimate has meant "inflict severe damage" for some four hundred years. It has simply changed meaning, as words continually do. In fact, if you look up just about any "common" word you will see that it no longer has meanings that were once common. The "etymological fallacy" is a vulgar error, viz., the opinion that some earlier meaning of a word is its "true" meaning, such as claiming that the "real meaning" of doctor is "teacher", or that the "real meaning" of December is "the tenth month". To claim such a thing is to claim, in effect, that almost every humdrum utterance is gibberish, a mishmash of semantic mistakes.


 * (There's a nice example of the etymological fallacy in the next section of this commentary. Classical Greek katakhráomai meant, basically, "use to the fullest extent". It also meant "misuse, abuse" (of anything, not just, or even especially, language). This is a more straightforward semantic development than might appear to the linguistically naive reader. If a concept is in any tangible way a reflection of social norms, it is liable to be understood as relating to some societal fault. Thus Lat. meticulosus meant "careful, scrupulous" but also, and early on, "fearful, excessively careful". Most human activities are "well-meaning", so if you actually identify one as well-meaning, you're in trouble already. So it's easy to get from "use to full extent" to "overuse, abuse, damage".


 * Now, a problem about catachresis in its proper sense is that "mistaken" senses -- genuinely mistaken ones, like using the word rectum when from the context anus is intended -- if repeated enough to become general become thereby standard. I was amused to note, in Webster's International Unabridged 2nd ed., that porte cochere is first defined as a gate in a wall large enough to accommodate the passage of a carriage, but the entry adds, "commonly, though erroneously, used to denote a covered drive". "Commonly" and erroneously, both? Come, come. Not only that, but I have the gravest doubts that you could find in a month of searching a single native speaker of English who was even familiar with the supposedly correct sense of the term porte cochere, though obviously to the editor who composed that entry in the dictionary the now standard meanings was a catachresis. Similarly, though it may hurt some people's ears, like it or not, fortuitous now means "fortunate", eke (out) means "barely succeed or scrape by" (not "augment, add to"). Fussing about changes in meaning is right up there with trying to order the tides around.


 * As for mixed metaphors, well, they are just that, clumsy diction. Clumsy diction abounds in speech and "mixed metaphors" attract attention only because metaphors are (as linguists put it) "marked". More interesting are confusions that have unintended meaning, as in such memorable examples as Mr Smith fills a much-needed gap in our organization or Our trained technicians will skillfully accentuate your beauty needs. See also Irish Bull, though in my opinion that Wikipedia article (starting with its absurd, and absurdly confident "etymology") is almost as atrocious as this one which, ironically and egregiously, throughout, uses the term catachresis in highly catachretic ways.


 * For considerable clarification of and perspective on what has become a muddled subject generally (and not recently, either), one should see the entry catachresis" in the Merriam Webster Usage Dictionary''.Alsihler (talk) 16:39, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Literal meaning of the word catachresis (Ancient Greek: κατάχρησις; Modern Greek: κατάχρηση)
The word is derived from the Ancient Greek verb καταχρῶμαι (Modern Greek: καταχρώμαι - commonly misspelled as καταχράζομαι), which means to use something in excess; derivative uses also mean "abuse," "overdose" or "overindulgence" (for example, κατάχρηση ναρκωτικών ουσιών means "drug abuse"), etc.

While it is possible to use the word to refer to improper use of the word (as overuse can lead to misuse), it does not mean that. RaspK FOG 22:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Eric Partridge's way of putting it
In his book "Usage and Abusage" Eric Partridge says of catachresis thta the roiginal Greek word translatees roughly as contrary to usage-ness which ssms quite appositer. It covers such foolishness as using comparatives with absolutes: e.g.: "almost unique" - which is clearly absurd - it's either unique or it isn't! 81.102.15.200 (talk) 10:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC) I hope that this observation is useful!

Article unbalanced
The current phrasing of the article is either non-NPOV or too focused on one meaning. Looking at the "Penguin" definition, the Wiktionary entry, and the usuage I am acquainted with, its main meaning is a mistaken use (as opposed to e.g. deliberately playing with or extending of language). Most occurences would then be detrimental and should be avoided. (Consider e.g. the common modern use "literally" to mean more or less the opposite of its true meaning: "He literally flew down the run-way.")

The claim

Catachresis is a very common habit, and it is crucial in the evolution of a language, as it helps to overcome the lexical poverty of a language.

in particular, is misleading (while perfectly true), because it puts the focus exclusively on the positive effects, and overlooks the many negative effects. These include unnecessary drifts in meaning, one word replacing another in meaning, people from different generations using words differently, etc.

Ironically, it can be argued that this article uses "catachresis" in a manner that amounts to---catachresis.

I will wait roughly one week and, barring convincing arguments to the contrary, then re-write the article to be more balanced. 88.77.134.12 (talk) 19:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

NOR
Although I see what 88.77.128.233 was trying to do, his/her edit stinks of Original Research. There are no references or supporting proofs for the additions. This will also need to be rewritten. Jubilee♫ clipman 21:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Warren Section
Why is there an entire section here devoted to Calvin Warren's Ontological Terror Blackness, Nihilism, and Emancipation (2018)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.174.70.78 (talk) 04:26, 2 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree and I tried to shift the emphasis without losing the information by making a more general section title. 2001:171B:2274:7C21:7477:5625:3765:DCB7 (talk) 17:56, 15 May 2022 (UTC)