Pataphor (Pataphore)

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Derived from 'pataphysics -- Alfred Jarry's "science of imaginary solutions" -- I am a (possibly) pointlessly convoluted concept.
A farce to some, a legitimate rebuttal to string theory (and possibly even quantum mechanics) to others, I am a perhaps best understood as a framework for exploring a certain degree of separation from reality.
As Jarry claimed that 'pataphysics existed "as far from metaphysics as metaphysics extends from regular reality," a pataphor attempts to create a figure of speech that exists as far from metaphor as metaphor exists from non-figurative language .
Differentiating it from the metaphor, a pataphor is a figurative device whose meaning is extended until it creates an entirely new context.
Example 1
Non-figurative
Tom and Alice stood side by side in the lunch line.
Metaphor
Tom and Alice stood side by side in the lunch line, two pieces on a chessboard.
Pataphor
Tom took a step closer to Alice and made a date for Friday night, checkmating. Rudy was furious at losing to Margaret so easily and dumped the board on the rose-colored quilt, stomping downstairs.
(The pataphor has created a world where the chessboard exists, including the characters who live in that world, entirely abandoning the original context.)
Example 2
"Jenny is eleven years old. She lives on a farm in Luxembourg, West Virginia. Today Jenny is collecting eggs from the henhouse. It is 10 a.m. She walks slowly down the rows of cages, feeling around carefully for eggs tucked beneath clucking hens. She finds the first egg in number 6. When she holds it to the light she sees it is the deep tan of boot leather, an old oil-rubbed cowboy boot, creased with microscopic branching lines, catching the light at the swelling above the scarred dusty heel, curled at the cuff, bending and creaking as the foot of the cowboy squirms to rediscover its fit, a leathery thumb and index prying at the scruff, the heel stomping the floor. Victor the hotel manager swings open the door and gives Cowboy a faint smile." - (from "Pataphor Test," by Pablo Lopez)
This material has been reprinted with permission from the author.
See www.paulavion.com/pata.html
De même qu'Alfred Jarry définit que la ’Pataphysique « s'étend aussi loin au-delà de la métaphysique que la métaphysique au-delà de la physique », une pataphore crée une expression qui existe aussi loin de la métaphore que la métaphore s'étend elle-même au-delà du langage non figuré.
Les Carnets du Collège de ’Pataphysique n°22 (décembre 2005) donnent une série d'exemples de pataphores littéraires illustrées photographiquement.
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(( What Is a Pataphor? ))