Word of the Day: Conceit

For someone who is 9 credits short of her master’s degree, I remain incredibly ignorant in so many areas. I read, with a combination of great interest and great confusion, about the literary term, “conceit”. Thanks to John at Confessing Evangelical, I learn about things that either: 1) My school did not deem important or 2) I didn’t pay attention to in school.

According to Wiktionary,

Conceit: In literature and poetry, a device of analogy consisting of an extended metaphor

I’m always glad to learn something new, but I struggled to understand this aspect of the term UNTIL I read this helpful explanation at Wikipedia:

An example from popular culture is the way many cartoons feature animals that can speak to each other, and in many cases can understand human speech, but humans cannot understand the speech of animals. This conceit is seen, and sometimes exploited for plot purposes, in such films as Over The Hedge, the Balto series, and Brother Bear.

It took the example of a cartoon before I could say, “Oh, I get it now!”. That’s pretty sad, but at least I learned something.

2 Responses to “Word of the Day: Conceit”

  1. I like the style of your blog. Keep it up. Check out my Lutheran blog.
    Blessings
    D.P.

  2. Glad to be of service. :-)

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