On Jul 26, 2012, at 6:09 PM, Nat Russo <[email protected]> wrote: > I was writing earlier today and realized I may have been guilty of > anachronism. If you are writing about a pre-industrial society, would it be > anachronism to use "...ate away at him like a cancer" as a metaphor? > A pre-industrial society knows nothing of "cancer", right? Well, *my* > pre-industrial society doesn't, I should say. > > Just one of those curious tidbits that's likely to...well...eat away at me > like a cancer. /wink /nudge #seewhatIdidthere > > Nat
OK, so YOUR pre-industrial society doesn't know cancer. As in doesn't understand what runaway cells are? Or they don't use that name when someone starts growing visible tumors? Because there are a lot of cancers, starting with basel cell carcinoma and melanoma and moving on to those that build tumors in the extremities that distort limbs, or abdominal ones that get up to forty or fifty pounds before the person dies. In English, the word goes back to the 14th Century, from a Greek root meaning "hard" because of the hard tumors that would be removed from the bodies of those who died from it. So use "ate away at him like leprosy." Best, R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
