Boiling blood

READING Internet postings often makes my blood boil.

         (Chua, Lee Hoong.  "That escape: Crucial issues aplenty, so let's move on."  The Straits Times [Singapore] 26 April, 2008: S13)

Mixed metaphor

A mixed metaphor attempts to create an extended comparison but fails because it is not consistent with itself. For example, in an essay on the language used in describing pain relief medicine, a student wrote:

"The topic of pain relievers seems clouded in a sea of medical terminology."

The metaphor is mixed because the images of cloud and sea do not match. The student should have said either "drowned in a sea of medical terminology" or "clouded in a fog of medical terminology." Metaphor can be effective, but do not put too much weight on your own ingenuity; it might collapse under the strain.

         (Department of English, University of Victoria)

Today, one cannot help but conclude that the trailblazer is more than a sputtering meteor, and perhaps one with an antisocial personality disorder.

         (Chua, Lee Hoong.  "The squandered potential of Chee Soon Juan."  The Straits Times [Singapore] 7 June, 2008: S9)


Since when are meteors sociable (or supposed to be)?

I suppose one could dodge the charge by claiming ambiguity in the sentence, but that's a fault too.

Another one for Poblem Engrish  :-D

Is this is what happens when a former Internal Security Department (ISD) intelligence officer "analyst" becomes a newspaper editor?

Eric Ellis has more.

Bonus round: The Tragicomedies: Selected Writings of Andy Ho.

Further reading:

It is one thing to disagree with a person’s ideology, his methods and his political agenda. By all means, attack his thoughts, his values and his principles. By all means, criticise him with the harshest of words on his methods and his agenda. But to suggest that a person may be mentally not right when there has never been a psychiatric examination, is the meanest thing to do, especially from journalists whom the public expect to be factual and objective. Where is the medical evidence?

I have worked in Woodbridge Hospital, a psychiatric institution, before. Before we make a diagnosis of a patient, he needs to undergo a psychiatric examination. This requires one to two hours of examination of the patient by the psychiatrist, another one to two hours of interview with his relatives, some days of observation in the ward, some psychological testing by a psychologist and a conference of doctors and psychologists before a firm diagnosis is made.

How on earth then could a lay person have the temerity to make any claim on a medical diagnosis, especially a psychiatric one?

         (The Politics of Madness.)