For the examples given in D, tasteless word-selection is a fitter
description than mixed metaphor, since each of the words that conflict
with others is not intended, as a metaphor at all. 'Mixed metaphor' is
more appropriate when one or both of the terms can only be consciously
metaphorical. Little warning is needed against it; it is so
conspicuous as seldom to get into speech or print undetected.
_This is not the time to throw up the sponge, when the enemy, already
weakened and divided, are on the run to a new defensive position_. A
mixture of prize-ring and battlefield.
In the following extract from a speech it is difficult to be sure how
many times metaphors are mixed; readers versed in the mysteries of
oscillation may be able to decide:
_No society, no community, can place its house in_ _such a
condition that it is always on a rock, oscillating between
solvency and insolvency. What I have to do is to see that
our house is built upon a solid foundation, never allowing
the possibility of the Society's life-blood being sapped.
Just in proportion as you are careful in looking after the
condition of your income, just in proportion as you deal
with them carefully, will the solidarity of the Society's
financial condition remain intact. Immediately you begin to
play fast and loose with your income the first blow at your
financial stability will have been struck._
A real poet losing himself in the _meshes_ of a foolish _obsession_.
Johnson tore the _hearts_ out of books ruthlessly in order to extract
the _honey_ out of them expeditiously. Are we to let the _pendulum_
swing back to the old _rut_? Those little houses at the top of the
street, _dwarfed_ by the _grandiloquence_ on the opposite side, are
too small, too.