Amateur Mechanical Engineering

Catachresis - ("abuse" in Greek); fucking up a metaphor, or just words in general

Soon we would be greening the lemons.

Vice Squad

Metaphor - something with a literal and symbolic meaning.

A Screeching Weasel lyric from long ago: "I see rioting; I see bodies in the streets."

Today, while running with Patrick, it occurred to me that I look for signs of vice in street trash: syringes, condoms, coke bags. They stand out like rings on a beach.

Why is this?

I blame the counterproductivity of anti-drug education in the 1980s.

Commercials, Officer Friendly, and in-school programs had me convinced that only bad people did drugs. Drugs were in the inner city, hidden in the ghetto. It didn't help that Officer Friendly, the D.A.R.E. lion (what was his name?), and the people in the commercials were all white. I grew up thinking only bad people did drugs.

Now I know a lot of people who use drugs. And they're not all bad. But they're not all very good.

DC trip

Paragoge - The addition of a lettter or syllable to the end of a word

Budzzz.

Gravity - it's so... elementary

anthypophora - where the writer makes an interjection and then immediately answers it

I know you might say those pies are D-A-N-G-E-R, but wait til you see what’s in the box.

UV

antanaclasis - repeating a word or phrase with a different meaning

Burlington – Walking to the top of the university hill, I saw this building really high on the grass; at the same time, I was also really high on the grass.