5 ms·
It's not misquote, it's paraphrase.
by zeteo 16y ago
It's not misquote, it's paraphrase.
- roadnottaken 16y agoNo, to paraphrase is to summarize or re-word [1]. I changed the meaning (from democracy to peer-review [2]). I'm not sure misquote was the best word-choice, but I definitely wasn't paraphrasing. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paraphrase http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paraphrase [2] "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”" -- Winston Churchill
- duncanj 16y agoYou can say what you want to say, since it's original, and say, "with apologies to Winston Churchill."
- zeteo 16y agoIf you google "to paraphrase Winston Churchill", you hit the figure of speech that you've used. It's a pretty common turn of (para)phrase. PS: Don't rely too much on dictionary.com, it's not the best. E.g. the New Oxford American Dictionary correctly gives the second meaning of "paraphrase: a rewording of something written or spoken by someone else".
- eli 16y agoIt's a common phrase because it's meant to be funny. The word "paraphrase" is being used ironically
- sp332 16y agoThere's a fairly new term for this: snowclone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone