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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1671 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 4, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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2 seems dodgy to me. It's metaphorically true but not definitionally or literally true. Somebody talking about your brass testes is not going to suggest selling them to a metallurgist.

I was joking a bit about Thatcher - I think that counts as a non-literal usage. But I think expressions like "be a man", "man up", "turning boys into men" etc. and compounds including "manly" and "manliness" are using sense 2 literally.

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