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The Virtual World

Poetry, the imagination, and the creative life.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

From Language Log:

Creative work: metonymy

Sex and the City 2 premiered in London last night. Sarah Jessica Parker arrived in a black strapless dress from the house of her favorite British designer, and what she told her fans provided another interesting example of what Mark Liberman noted in a recent post on fashion talk:

There's only one person I could have worn tonight and that was Alexander McQueen.

Ms Parker didn't just say she was wearing Alexander McQueen; she actually used an expression quantifying over persons (only one person) as the understood object of wear (in the sense that she modified person with the relative clause I could have worn ___), and then clarified that the person was Alexander McQueen; and still the metonymic reading survived and was understood by fans and journalists alike.
Posted by Peter at 3:55 PM
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2 comments:

T. said...

This is a great site, Peter. Thanks!

May 30, 2010 6:17 PM
Peter said...

Glad you enjoy , T.

May 31, 2010 7:43 AM

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Poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~T. S. Eliot

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Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ Plato

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A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. ~ Salman Rushdie

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Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~ Novalis

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Poetry is what maintains our capacity for contemplation and difficulty. — Carolyn Forche

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Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild. — Denis Diderot

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Sometimes something wants to be said, sometimes a way of saying wants to be used. — Paul ValĂ©ry

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