Metaphorical Inaccuracy

Some people hold a boning knife like a conductor's baton during a particularly slow part of Pachelbel's Canon.

[Tom Mylan, a Brooklyn butcher, quoted by Kevin Purdy, "A Butcher's Tips for Avoiding Cuts in the Kitchen", Lifehacker, 10 February 2010.]

Unfortunately, Pachelbel's famous "Canon" has only one tempo, one speed. Sections of the work have more or fewer notes than other sections, giving an impression of being "faster" or "slower" but, in fact, the entire piece is but one speed throughout and the conductor's beat would not change. I suppose her grip might, but I can't see why.

Posted on February 10, 2010 at 18.22 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Feeling Peevish, Raised Eyebrows Dept.

Leave a Reply

To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.

I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.