Practical assignment

In the excerpts that follow find figures of substitution used. Explain their stylistic functions in the given excerpts:

1. I remember a friend of mine buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two-hundred horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards. (J.K.Jerome).

2. The car which picked me up on that particular guilty evening was a Cadillac limousine about seventy-three blocks long (J.Baldwin).

3. The little woman, for she was of pocket size, crossed her hands solemnly on her middle. (J.Galsworthy).

4. We all think that time is endless when we’re younger. The years ahead seem to stretch out forever and indefinitely. But they don’t … they disappear in a flash, in the wink of an eye. (B.T.Bradford)

5. Was it possible that she could have gone to have an abortion?

In the Dublin of 1958 such things were not unknown. (M. Binchy)

6. Maybe one of those old men in the commercial room had been Nellie’s heart’s desire.

It wasn’t so impossible. (M.Binchy)

7. I was a young man then – Good Heavens, it’s a quarter of a century ago – and I wanted to enjoy all the loveliness of the world in the short time allotted to me before I passed into the darkness. (W.S.Maugham).

8. Charity as she knew it was complex and reciprocal, and almost every roof she saw signified charity. Mrs. Balcolm worked for the brain. Mrs. Ten Eyke did mental health. Mrs. Trenchard worked for the blind. Mrs. Horowitz was in charge of diseases of the nose and throat. Mrs. Trempler was tuberculosis, Mrs. Surcliffe was Mothers’ March of Dimes, Mrs. Craven was cancer, and Mrs. Gilkson did the kidney. (J.Cheever)

9. She missed Qwen. She would miss him until the day she shed this mortal coil and went to join him. (B.T. Bradford)

10. Across country we went like wind followed by a couple of black cars full of moustaches. They were gaining on us. (L.Durrell).

11. I knew them all, or knew what they did for a living: timber, flour, textiles, insurance. Timber and flour were standing at the counter discussing the cost of labour. Textiles at a table in the opposite side of the room was complaining about his garage bills. Insurance was listening waiting his turn. (J.Braine).

12. Old age is golden, so I’ve heard said

But sometimes I wonder as I crawl into bed

With my ears in a drawer and my teeth in a cup

My eyes on the table until I wake up (P.Seeger).

13. Nessa felt a blanket of guilt almost suffocate her (M.Binchy)

14. In fact she was an inspired gardener. Flowers, plants, trees, and shrubs were woven into a tapestry of living color and design by her, one that stunned the eye with its compelling beauty. (B.T. Bradford)

15. Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa-cushions, she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise, as if there were no longer any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect (J.Galsworthy).

16. Well, that’s the way I was. A dusty little thinker thinking stony little thoughts and casting them at oblivious shadows, when my meditations were interrupted. I thought I heard a voice. Then I thought perhaps it was the noise of the machinery. Stresses and strains make conveyers talk. They scream curses, they grumble and complain. When they can take the load they whistle like butcher boys used to whistle when there was meat for the butcher to deliver. (S.Chaplin).

17. Remember Brake as he was and for what he was, and remember him true, capricious, passionate, infuriating, wild, tender, drunk, sober, loving, petulant, dark and brilliant. He was a bottle of champagne about to be open, a piano about to be played, a canvas about to be painted, he was life with the top off <…>. (Ch. Bingham)

18. “You cheat, you no-good cheat – you tricked our son. Took our son with a scheming trick, Miss Tomboy, Miss Sarcastic, Miss Sneerface”. (Ph.Roth).