Some time ago I was explaining something to my son with what I thought was the perfect analogy when he interrupted me and said; “You should write a book”. I was very pleased to hear him say that but then he followed up with, “yeah, you could call it the book of confusing analogies”.
Anyway, this should go in it.
Bligh and POTUS45 are completely opposite in character. Bligh was supremely skilled, but couldn’t care less what his crew thought of him. POTUS45 is staggeringly inept, but dazzles his minions (though maybe a little less than a month ago…)
One last thing…
What was the the first thing the guy did when he got up on Tuesday?
Write thank you cards to doctors and nurses? Maybe, condolences to the bereaved?
No. He writes a bizarre tweet insulting the governors who are holding everything together. First damn thing, before the man has his corn flakes. Like it was on his mind, all damn night. Nothing else going on.
Is that OK with y’all? Anybody want to back him up on that?
I wouldn’t be too hard on the man. He might have fallen asleep in his tanning bed and had a nightmare that he had become invisible.
His nightmares are a nation’s hopes and dreams.
Yes, but this is not like the game show Jeopardy where the correct answer (in the form of a question) is required, it’s more like the show Family Feud where the most popular answer, right or wrong is required.
As a mariner I know about the boat journey of course, but as to the movie; if a crew member refers to his captain as “regular Captain Bligh” he is almost certainly not saying the he thinks his captain has excellent small boat navigation skills.
Wait… Something’s wrong here… This started out as an anti Trump thread and is now on a maritime topic… How do I flag this?
Now I am completely lost.
No need to be lost… Do you have comments on ‘The maritime lore behind President Trump’s mutiny on the bounty tweet’? If not, then seek another thread.
Mutiny on the Bounty was about the ruthless, unjust, tyrannical Captain Bligh of the HMS Bounty who shackled his own crew and tortured so many of his own men that they mutinied against him. It’s fascinating that Trump sees himself as Captain Bligh. It’s quite a terrifying thought as well. That Tweet is proper food for psychoanalysts I would say…
Trump is many things in his own mind. He is what we have right now,and does get shit done, if he wants to. As I said before, will vote for the least worse alternative. Not sure who that is , will let this play out.
He does?? Like what?
The issue I see here is the assumption that we all share the same meaning wrt the story of Capt Bligh and the Bounty. But we don’t. IIRC the real Capt Blight disciplined the crew more or less the same as his peers at the time. Capt Cook for example.
But that’s not the meaning here because of the reference to the movie. So the question is which movie? Not so much as an attempt to decipher the tweet which I think would be a waste of time but just as a look about shared meanings.
I thought there must be a word for this and metonymy* and synecdote came to mind but neither is right. Then yesterday I came across enthymeme which I understand broadly means an implicit assumption.
Don’t know if enthymeme and mimeme share the same root or not but mimeme > Richard Dawkins > gene > meme > internet meme.
metonymy: the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive , or the track for horse racing .
synecdote: a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland’s baseball team”).