Thursday, August 29, 2013

Frankenstein's Monster

I think that Frankenstein's monster is one of the best analogies we have available to us. This is a being who was stitched together from the remnants of several people, and given life as a new, single being. 

Anything that is brought back to life can have this analogy (like trying to resurrect a fad). Also anything that is made of scraps brought together (dress that is made of material salvaged from several other dresses). 

To call something a Frankenstein's monster is to call it an abomination. That thing should not exist and is grotesque to those that gaze upon it. 

I sometimes feel that way when I read really bad writing. This is mostly in the professional world, where I often see documents hacked together with bits and pieces from several other documents. I can tell it because the voice is inconsistent. Tenses shift, rhythm and patterns shift. Sometimes even focus shifts. What really makes it a monster is when something was so obviously cut and pasted that the font and size are different through a document. 

What have you come across that you could describe with this metaphor?

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