Dodging a narrow bullet

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jul 30, 2007, at 9:31 AM, Lary Horn wrote:

> At 12:14 PM -0400 7/30/07, Marc Sacks wrote:
>> I found this interesting note in an email from a website called
>> audiooddities:
>>
>> Internet Radio in the United States dodged a very narrow bullet
>> yesterday
>> when
>> SoundExchange, the thuggish lobbying arm if the Recording Industry
>> Association of America, backed off on demands which would have
>> virtually
>> silenced this exciting and original kind of Radio due to the
>> imposition of
>> a fee schedule which was roundly, and rightly, criticized as
>> excessive and
>> unfair.
>>
>> I would think a narrow bullet would be the easiest kind to dodge.
>> Probably
>> the writer meant "narrowly dodge a bullet." Is there a name for
>> this sort
>> of mixup? Is it very common?
>>
> I think of it as the "cocked an inquisitive eyebrow" construction but
> I'm sure it has a more official name.  "Adverbial [or Modifer]
> displacement" is accurate but too general.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transferred_epithet

A transferred epithet or hypallage is the transfer of an epithet from
one noun to another. Thus an adjective or a predicative will
grammatically modify one noun or become an adverb, while semantically
modifying another.

Examples:

"restless night" The night was not restless, but the person who was
awake through it was.

"happy morning" Mornings have no feelings, but the people who are
awake through them do.

"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way" -Thomas Gray, the way is
not weary, but the ploughman.

----

the wikipedia definition is not great, but the phenomenon includes
adjectives understood adverbially, not as modifying the nouns they're
in construction with.

another type: a cold cup of coffee, etc.

and see:

Hall, Robert A., Jr.  1973.  The transferred epithet in P. G.
Wodehouse.  LI 4.1.92-94.

arnold

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