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November 9

Paraphrasing

Dictionary, even Wikipedia, definitions of the word paraphrase usually make no mention of the fact that people often use the word when they manipulate a famous quote to add a humorous slant or even change its meaning. Why is that? Imagine Reason (talk) 14:10, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please give an example of the phenomenon you describe. --Viennese Waltz 15:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be a misquotation; a paraphrase specifically preserves the intended meaning. Alansplodge (talk) 15:14, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Imagine Reason: I think I know what you mean: a situation where somebody uses the phrase "and I paraphrase..." before saying whatever it is. To me it can have slightly humorous overtones. I've Googled that phrase and haven't come across any examples (yet) of famous quotes being changed in this way, but I think the first sentence of this abstract might be what you're getting at: The theme of this Peer Review Week is diversity, and I paraphrase the original citation of M. Forbes, “Diversity: the art of thinking independently together,” because it says it all. Am I on the right lines? Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 16:04, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Malcolm Forbes is widely reported to have said, either "Diversity is the art of thinking independently together"^[1][2][3] or "Diversity: the art of thinking independently together".^[4][5][6] so the "paraphrasing" consists of the substitution of reviewing for thinking. I cannot find when and where Forbes is supposed to have said this, but it may have been a riff on a famous phrase by Alexander Meiklejohn that he used in an article from 1938: "the art of democracy is the art of thinking independently together".^[7] --Lambiam 23:39, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd call a mangled quotation only a misquotation when it is accidental or intended to mislead. The phenomenon here involves a variation on some motto, adage or maxim where the audience is assumed to be aware of the fact that it is a variation. This is definitely not included in the commonly understood meaning of paraphrase. We may call this overextension erroneous, but if enough people succumb to this it will find its way into dictionaries and become normalized. --Lambiam 23:55, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An allusion, perhaps. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An examples is Parafraseando a Trotski: “ Tú quizá no estás interesado en el poder, pero el poder sí está interesado en ti”., "Paraphrasing Trotsky,'You may not be interested in power, but power is interested in you.". wikiquote:Leon Trotsky has it:

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

This was attributed to Trotsky in an epigraph in Night Soldiers: A Novel (1988) by Alan Furst but it may actually be a revision of a statement earlier attributed to Trotsky: "You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you." Only a very loose translation of "the dialectic" would produce "war."

[...] It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

This statement on dialectic itself seems to be a paraphrase, with the original in In Defense of Marxism Part VII : "Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party" (1942) — where Trotsky publishes a letter to Albert Goldman (5 June 1940) has been translated as "Burnham doesn't recognize dialectics but dialectics does not permit him to escape from its net."

Parafraseando a Trotski sobre la guerra, Francia puede no estar interesada en la etnicidad, pero la etnicidad sí está interesada en Francia. "Paraphrasing Trotsky on war, France may not be interested in ethnic difference, but ethnic difference is interested in France."

In Spanish, paráfrasis:

3. f. Frase que, imitando en su estructura otra conocida, se formula con palabras diferentes.

"Sentence that, imitating the structure of a known one, is formulated with different words."

--Error (talk) 10:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Snowclone mentions "cliché", "phrasal template", "memeché", "catch structure". I propose "template quotation".

--Error (talk) 10:04, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So we see the beginning of the foreseen ~~intrusion~~ inclusion in dictionaries. Restricting ourselves to English, the author confessing to a variation on Forbes could have written, "and I snowclone the original citation of M. Forbes". (BTW, the term citation here is strange; the original use by Forbes was not a citation, and the citations of his dictum were not original.) --Lambiam 14:09, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]