BS: George Davis is innocent

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 May 11 - 10:36 AM

A catachrestic sense?

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MartinRyan
Date: 27 May 11 - 10:24 AM

... in a sense...

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 May 11 - 10:21 AM

I didn't mean to start all this, honest!

MtheGM IS INNOCENT

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MartinRyan
Date: 27 May 11 - 10:14 AM

Lest there be any doubt....

Could casual conversation contain categoric catechreses?

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: s&r
Date: 27 May 11 - 10:10 AM

"Could casual conversation contain catachreses"

A new tongue twister to rival Peter Piper...


Stu

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 26 May 11 - 09:02 PM

Its easy for you to say that.....

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 May 11 - 02:14 PM

Perhaps the concept of catachresis in casual conversation is itself a trifle catachrestic?

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 26 May 11 - 01:59 PM

Softly, softly catch a rhesus (monkey)....
Softly softly catachresis

Catachrhesis not the need....

The heart has its reasons
The nose has its catachresis

(Just trying to figure out how to drop catachresis into casual conversation.)

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Jeanie
Date: 25 May 11 - 06:41 PM

"Hissing Sid is innocent" too....Remember that ?

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 25 May 11 - 02:05 PM

GSJGU - it's no good complaining about a hijack of a BS thread, especially as the thread title didn't say anything about folk art!

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 May 11 - 09:33 AM

The bottom line in our legal system (leaving aside the antics of the US authorities in Guantanamo etc) is, everyone is "innocent until proved guilty".

If a verdict is unsafe and cannot be allowed to stand, the accused has not been proved guilty.

George Davis (on this occasion) is therefore innocent.

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Seayaker
Date: 25 May 11 - 09:29 AM

I remember that when he was caught for the second offence one radio comedy show said that Met. officers were going round graffiti-ing walls with "George Davis is inacell OK"

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Stu
Date: 25 May 11 - 09:00 AM

I don't have bleedin' hair left.

(interesting post though Al).

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 May 11 - 07:48 AM

Thanks, Al. Used to play a fair game of Scrabble, indeed, though haven't played recently. Did, however, have a letter in The Times a week or two back about words omitted from Collins' Book of Scrabble Words.

~M~

Poor old Sugarfoot, he must be tearing his hair out over this drift ~ ah diddums!

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 25 May 11 - 07:17 AM

Just so we all know why innocent is a considerable catachresis. (I bet you're a bugger at Scrabble, Mike!)

Catachresis (from Greek êáôÜ÷ñçóéò, "abuse") is "misapplication of a word, especially in a mixed metaphor" according to the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Another meaning is to use an existing word to denote something that has no name in the current language.[1] Catachresis is a very common habit, and can have both positive and negative effects on language: on the one hand, it helps a language evolve and overcome poverty of expression; on the other, it can lead to miscommunications or make the language of one era incompatible with that of another.[original research?] Catachresis is more a linguistic phenomenon than a figure of speech.

Common forms of catachresis are:

Using a word in a sense radically different from its normal sense.
"'Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse" — Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
Using a word to denote something for which, without the catachresis, there is no actual name.
"a table's leg"
Using a word out of context.
"Can't you hear that? Are you blind?"
Using paradoxes or contradictions.
"Darkness visible" — John Milton, Paradise Lost
Creating an illogical mixed metaphor.
"To take arms against a sea of troubles..." – Shakespeare, Hamlet
Misuse of a word out of a misunderstanding of its meaning.
"The runner literally flew down the track."
Catachresis is often used to convey extreme emotion or alienation. It is prominent in baroque literature and, more recently, in dadaist and surrealist literature.

Example from Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry:

Masters of this [Catachresis] will say,

Mow the beard,
Shave the grass,
Pin the plank,
Nail my sleeve.

From whence results the same kind of pleasure to the mind, as doth to the eye when we behold Harlequin trimming himself with a hatchet, hewing down a tree with a razor, making his tea in a cauldron, and brewing his ale in a teapot, to the incredible satisfaction of the British spectator.[2]

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GUEST,Sugarfoot Jack giving up . . .
Date: 25 May 11 - 06:51 AM

I wondered if this thread would be hijacked by discussion by those who wanted to blather and prattle on about how Davis was a professional criminal. Not the point of the thread, not relevant to the original post.

I give up. These people are killing Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 25 May 11 - 03:18 AM

Dear Mike W

The protest to Free George Davis also ruined a good day's cricket at Headingley for us over here in Australia

As I recall our Doug Walters was on 85 or thereabouts and looked set to score 100

He never got a century in England (he got plenty elsewhere)

Ah ...the memories old mate

Allen Davis (no relation thankfully)

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 May 11 - 01:40 AM

Anyhow, he never served the 20 years. He was released early in the sentence by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins as he thought the conviction for the specific offence 'unsafe'; but a full 'free pardon' was withheld as his 'innocence' of the charge was far from proven. All that has now happened is that the judges of the Appeal Court, though still expressing that reservation, have, somewhat grudgingly, retrospectively recommended such a pardon. And he, condescendingly, announces that he won't seek any cash compensation for the short period he actually spent inside. Well, how nice of him!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 May 11 - 12:47 AM

Get a dictionary, Al. It is not a particularly obscure word ~~ I remember it occurring in many literary contexts. & I am a good bit elderlier than you, if it comes to that! You're not in your 80th year, are you!

I don't want to 'encourage a government to think it doesn't matter'; of course it matters ~ BUT I simply make the point that other things will wring my withers far more than that he couldn't have done this particular crime because he was probably somewhere else that night doing another one ~ and if not on that specific night, then ··· see what I mean?

Best

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 24 May 11 - 10:58 PM

'I can't say that the fact that he might have been misconvicted for one specific offence is, empirically and pragmatically, anything to break one's heart over.'

One offence for which you do twenty years..... I don't think any government should be encouraged to think it doesn't matter.

MtheGM - yor innate superiority was established years ago, is there really any need to terrify elderly folk like ourselves with long words like 'catachresis'.

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 24 May 11 - 06:43 PM

I remember the original campaign. George Davis may have been fitted up in one particular case, but he wasn't innocent of all crimes.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 May 11 - 03:01 PM

Much of the credit for his eventual release must go to Benedict Birnberg, the lawyer who tirelessly supported him. The lawfirm I then worked for was the other side of Borough High Street and we did not entirely see eye to eye.

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GUEST,MikeW
Date: 24 May 11 - 12:51 PM

They ruined a days cricket for me as I recall. I remember a sign outside Headingley that day stating, "Bill Stickers will be Prosecuted"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Davis_%28armed_robber%29

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 May 11 - 12:23 PM

Indeed, Gloria. He was a professional criminal with years of form. I can't say that the fact that he might have been misconvicted for one specific offence is, empirically and pragmatically, anything to break one's heart over. The word "innocent" here is a considerable catachresis IMO.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: GloriaJ
Date: 24 May 11 - 11:45 AM

His wife set up this campaign.He was freed, then caught red-handed engaged in another robbery after having also been cheating on the wife who supported him.

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 May 11 - 11:29 AM

Free George Davis(no thanks, I've already got one)

Subject: RE: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: gnomad
Date: 24 May 11 - 08:48 AM

By heck, that takes me back. The slogan was seemingly everywhere, though I'm blowed if I can remember a specific location.
A much favoured variation was "Free George Davis (with every 6 gallons)" many garage offers had that minimum purchase at the time.

Subject: BS: George Davis is innocent
From: Stu
Date: 24 May 11 - 06:38 AM

Conviction overturned

I used to see the graffiti going to and fro from Brum to West London when I was a kid, but can't remember where I saw this slogan (M40 perhaps?).

So let's catalogue the surviving examples of this piece of folk art.

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