Стилистика 6_unit2_Tropes

“But, son, are you sure? You know what they say about a bird in the hand.” /Stephen King Riding the Bullet/

6. “My husband was a career Marine, proud of it, and so was I. So am I, still, though he died in Vietnam.”

Holly was startled to realize that many of the early victims of that conflict would now have been past middle-age. The wives they left behind had now lived far more years without them than with them. How long until Vietnam seemed as ancient as the crusades of Richard the Lionheart or the Peloponnesian Wars? /Dean Koontz Cold Fire/

7. But before Holly had time to feel any relief, the whole sky seemed to be shaking as though gremlins were standing at the four corners and snapping it like a blanket. /Dean Koontz Cold Fire/

8. “Your mother loves you so much that sometimes she can’t stand not being Betty Crocker.” /Peter Straub Mr. X/

9. I saw George Gregson and Harry Stein […] leave the room by a peculiar door that could not have been more than forty-two inches high. It was an Alice Down the Rabbit-Hole door if ever there was one. /Stephen King The Breathing Method/ (from Different Seasons by Stephen King)

10. A futuristic, white open-top sports model lounged decadently alongside a vermilion Corniche more brilliantly scarlet than Vivien Leigh with a double first. /Wendy Holden Simply Divine/

Exercise 2.28. Point out cases of set phrase decomposition in bold type, decode them and say what effect is achieved:

1. The only reason you can’t accuse him of being scatterbrained is because he doesn’t have any brains to scatter. /Dean Koontz The Vision/ 2. Then, and Rohr couldn’t suppress a wicked smile as he prepared this, the plaintiff would present to the jury people who’d once worked for the tobacco industry. Dirty laundry would be aired, right there in that courtroom. /John Grisham Runaway Jury/ 3. I had been put aside long ago, and now I was the square peg in a very round hole. /Phyllis A. Whitney The Singing Stones/ 4. This rang a Saul-shaped bell with Jane. /Wendy Holden Simply Divine/ 5. “Everyone was very satisfied with her work… Not that it’s my place to tell you how to do you job, but it seems to me you’re barking up a completely wrong tree. Her murder had nothing to do with her work for me.” /Jonathan Kellerman the Clinic/

Exercise 2.29. Point out cases of set phrase decomposition and decode them. Say what effect is achieved and what other tropes are used to enhance the impression:

1. All over the bar there were beautiful half-naked girls – no, more like three-quarters naked girls, or nine-tenths naked girls – writhing and grinding and dancing in the faces of seated businessmen. /Tony Parsons Man and Boy/ 2. She had done her best with her floppy, insubordinate locks, but it was still less of a hair-do than a hair-don’t. /Wendy Holden Simply Divine/ 3. “She won’t want old embers stirred.” “There aren’t any old embers to stir,” I assured her sharply. /Phyllis A. Whitney The Singing Stones/ 4. My love is like a red, red Rolls, thought Jane. /Wendy Holden Simply Divine/ 5. The question Creed asked himself was this: To blackmail (and make a quick financial killing) or to indulge in a little piece of investigative journalism (which could lead to glory and perhaps an even higher financial reward)? No question really. Two birds in a bush were always better than one in the hand as far as Creed was concerned. /James Herbert Creed/

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