Misuse of Comic Relief

Misuse of Comic Relief Misuse of Comic Relief Misuse of Comic Relief By Maeve Maddox The following passage from a newspaper feature alerted me to confusion between the literary term comic relief and the idiom to throw [something] into relief: Inside, the obituary request for humane society donations comes into comic relief. Theres a Jack Russell and a King Charles, a cockatoo Miss Peepers and a cage full of finches. Theres a goldendoodle, an Australian shepherd, a standard poodle, and now Rosss two Persians and another cat. A second tropical bird is at a Memphis vet. The journalist is writing about a man whose obituary requested that memorial donations be made to the local humane society. When he visited the family home and saw the multitude of pets, the memorial request took on greater significance. The existence of the orphaned animals caused the request to come into relief, but not into comic relief. The noun relief has two usual meanings. One kind of relief is ease or alleviation given to or received by a person through the removal or lessening of some cause of distress or anxiety. For example, Passengers  are breathing a  sigh of relief  after an Ebola scare at Los Angeles International Airport. Another kind of relief is the projection of a design from a flat surface. For example, The alabaster wall panel shows the mounted figure of King Ashurbanipal in relief. This latter meaning of relief is used figuratively to mean vividness, distinctness, or prominence due to contrast. For example, At a time when for-profits strategically adopt the stylized selflessness of nonprofit design, nonprofit profit-seeking stands out in ever sharper relief. The idiom to throw into relief means, to make something plainly evident or clearly visible by contrast. For example, The effect of the  comment  is to  throw into relief  the wonder of his conversion and to point to the contrast between his  previous  way of life and [his] new calling. The term comic relief has nothing to do with a raised image. Comic relief is the writing technique of relieving serious content with humorous or comic interludes. In this context, relief means, alleviation of distressful emotions. The insertion of comic relief may be in the form of an entire scene, like the much-cited knocking at the gate example in Macbeth. Shakespeare provides his audience with the porters bawdy monologue before facing them with the harrowing discovery of King Duncans mutilated corpse. The effect of lightening somber content can also be achieved by a line of dialogue or a comical character who appears from time to time and can be relied on to provoke a laugh from the audience or reader. For example, Falstaff relieves the bloody history lessons of Shakespeares Henry plays. The sardonic one-liners of Lenny in episodes of Law and Order are intended to lighten the gruesome images of murder. Comic relief is, therefore, the deliberate use of humorous effect in the midst of serious content. The journalist cited above may have been amused by the Doctor Doolittle-esque collection of animals, but his personal amusement does not justify the use of the term comic relief in the context. I found additional examples of the misuse of comic relief on the Web. Heres one: The claim [by Italian authorities that France should return the Mona Lisa to Italy] throws into comic relief other more serious recent attempts by source countries to extend their repatriation claims to objects that left their borders years, decades or even (in the latest case) centuries before the 1970 cutoff date agreed to by signatories of the UNESCO Convention.- Arts Journal. The writer regards Italys claim as wacky and goes on to refer to other claims for art repatriation by other countries that are not as extremely preposterous, but which are in his view, also ridiculous. The expression that would make sense in this context is to throw into relief: Writers need to think twice before prefacing relief with comic Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 English Grammar Rules You Should Know26 Feel-Good WordsParticular vs. Specific

Je Ne Sais Quoi, That Indefinable Thing She Has

Je Ne Sais Quoi, That Indefinable Thing She Has Je ne sais quoi is a French idiomatic expression used so much in English that it has made it into the leading English dictionaries. In other words, it has been assimilated into the English language. Merriam-Webster describes je ne sais quoi as something (such as an appealing quality) that cannot be adequately described or expressed, as in This woman has a certain je ne sais quoi that I really like. In French, Larousse calls je ne sais quoi a thing one wouldnt know how to define but whose existence is understood intuitively. Je Ne Sais Quoi in French In French, the expression je ne sais quoi literally means I dont know what. It is often used for its literal meaning, not as an idiom. For example: Jai fait la vaisselle, le mà ©nage, le rà ©passage, et je ne sais quoi (dautre) encore. I did the dishes, the house-cleaning, I ironed, and I dont know what else. How the French Use It But the French also use it as we do  in English: a quality you cannot describe. We connect je ne sais quoi to the adjective describing it with de, like this: Cette fille a je ne sais quoi de fascinant. There is something fascinating about that girl. Note that the adjective is always masculine singular, even if the sentence refers to a girl or a  feminine noun. The adjective should agree with je ne sais quoi, which is masculine, singular. Two Spellings in French Or we can also use it,  as in English, as a noun: un je ne sais quoi or hyphenated as un je-ne-sais-quoi. Both spellings are correct. And we often use it with certain,  as in English: Elle avait un certain je-ne-sais-quoi de spà ©cial : lexpression de son regard peut-à ªtre. She had a certain special je ne sais quoi - the expression in her eyes perhaps. Finally, in spoken modern French, the je and the ne glide together, making the expression sound like jeun say kwa. A Word About Spelling This is a common expression that is recognizable in its correct spelling of  je ne sais quoi. It is even in English-language dictionaries. So there really is no excuse for misspelling this classic phrase as jena se qua, etc., as some anglophones tend to do. Just look it up in the dictionary. That woman with the special something will thank you. Sources Je-ne-sais-quoi. Larousse. Je ne sais quoi. Merriam-Webster, 2019.