Mixed metaphors and muddled minds

Having recently written a post about bad grammar versus evolving grammar, I had to share a few corkers from a post my colleague, Gareth van Onselen, wrote on Inside Politics about the vicious circle of poor language and poor reasoning.

The post provides quite a detailed critique of the language used by Sunday Independent journalist, Edwin Naidu. For my part, I merely want to share a selection of some of his particularly bizarre turns of phrase.

As Van Onselen notes:

“A good test of any metaphor is to imagine what it would look like as a picture. If it is a mixed metaphor, or confused in any way, the picture one conjures up will be bizarre and, most likely, humorous which, if that is not your intention, will have the effect of distracting from the central narrative, undermining the strength of the argument and, ultimately, lowering one’s opinion of that particular piece of writing.”

So, for a laugh, try to imagine how Zapiro or Tony Grogan might illustrate each of these

SA Blog Awards 2008

It’s SA Blog Awards time again, and I am happy to say that some of comments and recommendations a colleague of mine made on Inside Politics last year appear to have been taken on board.

Inside Politics came fifth in the political blogs category last year; but the winning blog – Steve Hofmeyer’s – while picking up on a couple of political issues from time to time, could not really be classified as having a political theme. This year the rules state that nominees have to fit the category in which they are placed. Good move.