The rich old man wept as he listened to the photograph, listened to the pittern-pattern of little feet running in and out of the notion, caring back memories of the family vacations he'd missed. Busyness, he had always been away on busyness. He ran his fingers through his air. He sneezed: Signature! Signature! and wondered what his life truly meant.
*malapropism, according to Webster: ludicrous misuse of words, especially caused by resemblance in sound. (here, for example, photograph for phonograph, notion for ocean, etc)
the prefix mal- : bad, either in the sense of evil/ill or in the sense of poorly/wrong.
the prefix bene- : good; either in the sense of righteousness or of 'well executed'.
So far as I know I've coined the word benepropism. What I'm trying to do is make a vignette** where both the word that is actually there and the word that is "supposed to" be there are part of the meaning or the image. To purposely misuse a word for good reasons.
**vignette, according to Webster (third definition): a short, delicate literary sketch
sorry to the younger sixwords participants for using tons of big words. I like big words... :-)
Wow, Kel, that's really neat. It's a fascinating approach, and I really like how you've executed it! And to have created a new form of writing, to boot! I especially like the line, "He ran his fingers through his air."
on a side note, I didn't realize vignettes were supposed to be delicate ... I'm not sure mine ever are! :)
Posted by: Kim at July 5, 2005 4:03 PMI love this!
and "...ran his fingers through his air." - sounds like my FIL, who happens to not have hair, so "air" is very appropriate! hehehehe
Posted by: DawnP at July 5, 2005 4:32 PMI'm pretty sure I didn't come up with the *idea* of benepropisms, just the name. I'm guessing Odgen Nash (if not others) have already committed the same crimes, and probably with a lot more finesse.
Yeah, I laughed at the word 'delicate' too. I don't know what qualifies for a 'delicate' literary sketch!
Posted by: kelly at July 5, 2005 9:21 PM