Fallacies of Writing Writing has been an important form of communication for thousands of years. Evolution to its current state has taken numerous centuries. Over time, many techniques have been created to better portray thoughts and feelings. Metaphors, over-generalizations and confusing phrases are all common language techniques used by writers. There are both good and bad uses of language techniques but when techniques are overused no beneficial result can occur.
Metaphors are probably the most useful language technique; however, the frequent use of tired metaphors is a common problem. Metaphors become tired through overuse not over time. The overuse of tired metaphors can not be placed solely on the writings of modern authors. In fact it is often the writers who create new metaphors, which the general populous repeats into submission. Phrases such as "that's the price of leadership" (LePage 2) or "[t]he field is littered" (Wishart 2) at one point would have been considered successful as the reader is forced to think about the true meaning behind the metaphor.
Cyclone as metaphor for political revolution (elec...
Millennium Metaphors
This was an emotional creation. I usually dislike ...Through overuse these metaphors meanings are long forgotten. It seems that once a metaphor is used it is set in speed dial, when recalled an automatic process ensues linking the metaphor with a single word rather than an image. People are attached to their metaphors and use them over and over in a pursuit to sound intellectual. A metaphor is much like a record, the more you use it the worse the quality becomes. The phrase "axis of evil" (Chretien 1) is perhaps the best example of a metaphor used continuously over a short period of time. This is an extreme example of the time it takes to overuse a metaphor. Less extreme examples are "crock of bull" (Gretzky 3) and "it won't be pretty" (Gretzky 3). These metaphors have...