[38]
It is the nature of metalepsis
to form a kind of intermediate step between the
term transferred and the thing to which it is transferred, having no meaning in itself, but merely
providing a transition. It is a trope with which to
claim acquaintance, rather than one which we are
ever likely to require to use. The commonest
example is the following: cano is a synonym
for canto and canto1 for dico, therefore cano is a
synonym for dico, the intermediate step being provided by canto.
1 In the sense of to repeat.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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