Mind your language
Mind your language
Some years ago The Spectator was sued for libel.
Some years ago The Spectator was sued for libel. It was a silly case, but it went to court and, early on, the counsel for the defence explained that The Spectator had no connection with the periodical of that name founded by Addison and Steele in 1711. But in the summing up the judge said, ‘And here we have a respectable magazine, founded by Addison and Steele . . . ’
I was reminded of this absurd incident by a reader, Mr Lawrence Brewer, who spotted the zeugma in Boris Johnson’s tribute to the late James Michie (Jaspistos), where he wrote of his ‘sitting with a glass of wine and a half-smile’.
Mr Brewer goes on in his letter to discuss what might be called zeugmatic similes. An example is ‘camp as a row of tents’. Here, something is likened to another thing that is in reality only like a punning yoke-fellow. Tents are not camp like Graham Norton.
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