#hyperbole

[calware]

no matter how detailed the style gets i am NEVER going to draw the bridge of these glasses. those things are meant to be two featureless rectangles and nothing more

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[spitblaze]

if you tell a trans women that she looks bad with her hair in a ponytail i hope you die and go to hell

[sofa-king-lame]

Tim Minear: So, uh. We need to do a Buck and Tommy hookup scene this ep...

Oliver: Ugh fine, but we're not turning the fucking lights on

[nordarknessdimsthesky]

A linguistic analysis of tumblr hyperbole in the tags

This post expands my previous analysis of hyperbolic reactions to cluster tags by themes. There were too many themes, some of them overlapping, to create a cohesive graph. Instead, I present several overarching themes from a data set of 50 tags observed and documented in various corners of tumblr.

1. Feeling Normal™️

Tags within this cluster profess Normal feelings (read: extreme excitement, enthusiasm, obsession, derangement, etc.).

#mmmmrrrghuhhhhghhh #I'm so normal about it teehee #absolutely not rending my clothing #feeling very normal and not feral at all #i will simply never recover #gif sets sent to personally destroy me #i can't cope #the eyes #i'm a puddle #i am INCONSOLABLE #i am DISTRAUGHT #IM NOT OKKAAAAAAYYYYYY #FEELING TOTALLY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NORMAL

2. Feralness

The following data points conjure animalistic behavior. There’s a non-zero amount of biting and chewing involved.

#chomping biting barking #biting my arms off #rattling my cage #[incoherent biting noises] #chewing glass #chewing through wood #*shaking the bars of my enclosure* HELLO!!!!!!!! #climbing the walls #biting gnawing chewing #im gonna rip off my front door and eat it

3. Noisy Emotional Outbursts

These tags encompass crying, screaming, yelling, and other loud reactions.

# shaking sobbing crying #SCREAMIIIING BANGING MY HEAD ON THE WALL #*no thoughts only wailing* #i am SOBBING #IM CRYING LIKE A BITCH #*just fucking yelling* #S C R E A M #screeching into a pillow #brb sobbing for 5-7 business years

4. Throwing

All of these tags except the last one involve being thrown instead of throwing things. I, personally, am entertained by the range of places/situations people are throwing themselves into.

#i am going to THROW MYSELF into the SEA #hurl me into the sea #hurl me into the sun #trebuchet me into the sun #hurl me straight at europa #vent me out of an airlock #slam me against a wall #put me in a box and throw me down the stairs #throwing myself into traffic you know? #just defenestrate me already #defenestrate me #absolutely hurl me through plate glass #i'm going to start tossing furniture

5. Bodily Harm

There’s a good deal of overlap with the previous theme. Nearly all of the tags involving throwing would result in varying degrees of bodily harm. Here are the tags outside of the Throwing subgroup.  

#im going to throw upppppp #tearing my hair out #banging my head against the wall #SCREAMIIIING BANGING MY HEAD ON THE WALL #biting my arms off #microwaving myself #crumple me up and microwave me

6. Absurdism

My personal favorite cluster. The imagery conjured and resulting comedic hyperbole is just [chef’s kiss].

#im gonna rip off my front door and eat it #crumple me up and microwave me #put me in a box and throw me down the stairs #defenestrate me #absolutely hurl me through plate glass

7. Keysmashes

These tags center less around meaning and more around style, so they form the last group. A handful of these could fall under Noisy Emotional Outbursts because they represent reaction noises. In my linguistic judgment, keysmashing increases the hyperbole – consider augh versus aughfhghghghhh – the latter reads as prolonged and more intense emotionally.

#aghdjakgsjadhjaka * #hrhrhrhgnnnghhhhh #aughfhghghghhh #mmmmrrrghuhhhhghhh #I'm so normal about it teehee #waughfhghghh #oughhhhghghhh

*one digression in a friend discord server was how people interpret keysmashes in their minds. Some hear the first couple letters and then some sputtering, others hear static. It’s a common joke that you need a minor in linguistics to understand conversations in this friend group. Such is the nature of things when the chaos linguist energy is strong.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Hyperbole

Hyperbole

An intentional exaggeration or an exaggerated statement that isn’t meant to be taken literally.

Typically used to make writing and speech more exciting using exaggeration. An imaginative hyperbole can capture the attention of a reader or listener as they analyze the hyperbole to understand the user’s actual meaning.

Examples of Hyperbole

Jim fell off the roof and broke every bone in his body.

Don’t touch that hive unless you want to deal with a million angry bees.

We looked forever for the remote but couldn’t find it.

My sister will eat anything.

The whole world was against me, but I managed to complete the report on time.

That comment is the dumbest thing anyone has ever said.

My mom keeps checking up on me every five seconds.

The explosion was loud enough to wake the dead.

I told him a billion times to keep the window closed.

My dad will kill me if he finds out I failed my math test.

That house is older than the dinosaurs.

The TV weighed a ton, so I had to drag it across the room.

Our grandma was the smartest person who ever lived.

The star running back is a bulldozer who destroys anything in his path.

I was sweating buckets while working outside today.

We live in Dallas, and my brother lives a million miles away in Toronto.

Hurry up and hand me the scissors before I die of old age.

The clowns had the entire audience dying with laughter.

She’s been working nonstop on her new painting.

My job is so easy that a monkey could do it.

Our daughter is a little angel.

The smell was so bad it would’ve downed a bull elephant.

Gaston is stronger than 10 men and has a smile that lights up the room.

Since she got sick and stopped eating, my cat has been nothing but skin and bones.

Hyperbole is an example of a rhetorical device.

Typically, a rhetorical device is defined as a technique or word construction that a speaker or writer uses to win an audience to their side, either while trying to persuade them to do something or trying to win an argument.

In the case of hyperbole specifically, exaggerated language can give an audience a sense of scale. For example, hyperbole can be used to imply an issue a speaker supports is very important or be used to imply an issue a speaker opposes is unimportant or dangerous.

At the same time, hyperbole can help establish a rapport with an audience, as it’s often seen as an example of less formal language.

it is important not to confuse or mislead an audience.

It should be clear whether or not a statement is a hyperbole.

A good practice is to use extreme embellishment or impossible feats in your hyperbole to make it abundantly clear that you are exaggerating. For example:

Ambiguous hyperbole: There are twenty cats in the barn. (A possible event.)

Clear hyperbole: There are a billion cats in the barn. (An impossible exaggeration.)

In formal writing and serious situations, hyperbole must be used sparingly and effectively.

Because hyperbole is often viewed as less formal, it may come across as inappropriate or make the user seem as though they aren’t serious.

When an audience expects accurate information or hard facts, hyperbole can give the impression that the speaker doesn’t have the information the audience wants or is intentionally concealing it from them.

Ill-timed use of hyperbole like this can damage the speaker’s credibility or weaken their influence over their audience.

Literary Examples of Hyperbole

His horses are the finest and strongest that I have ever seen, they are whiter than snow and fleeter than any wind that blows. —Iliad by Homer (7th/8th century BCE)

Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale’s flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. —Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight and a thousand sights of beauty. —Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

Sources ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[100gayicons]

While researching other closeted actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood, one name kept coming up - Guy Madison. But there were never any substantiating facts or convincing rumors.

At the most, it was guilt by association - his first agent in Hollywood was the notorious Henry Willson. Willson had a reputation for representing gay actors or requiring special favors from straight actors. Willson’s most famous clients were Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, who both were revealed to be gay later in life. There were rumors that Madison was sexually involved with Rory Calhoun (another Willson client).

Recently, I came across three different YouTube videos which “out” Gay Madison, one even naming names. I’m still not 100% convinced that the question is settled - Was Guy Madison gay or bisexual? But with others claiming Madison was gay, I thought I’d share his story and let you decide.

Guy Madison was born Robert Ozell Moseley in rural California. In 1944, when Madison was on leave from the Navy, he visited Hollywood, where he caught the eye of talent agent Henry Willson. It was Willson who renamed Robert Moseley as Guy Madison.

His first film role was a bit part in “Since You Went Away” (1944). His good looks caught the eye of moviegoers who demanded to see more of the 22-year-old sailor. Madison’s acting career began in earnest with a starring role in “Till the End of Time” (1946).

Madison’s appeared in over 60 movies and television shows through the 1970s. He starred as the title character in “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok” (1951–58). Its producers edited multiple episodes into films shown in theaters as well.

When his career in Hollywood began to fade, Madison moved to Europe, where he starred in a variety of movies, mostly shot in Germany, Italy, and Spain.

So, was Guy Madison bisexual or a closeted homosexual? He was married and divorced twice and was the father of 4 children. But celebrity biographer Darwin Porter wrote in his 2005 book “Howard Hughes: Hell’s Angel” that Guy Madison was one of the many male and female actors that the bisexual tycoon wined, dined, and fucked. And Hollywood biographer Lawrence J. Quirk claimed a known gossip columnist for The Hollywood Reporter in the 1950s bedded Madison in exchange for good reviews.

One of the YouTube posts says that Madison had been lovers with such actors as Ramon Navarro, Tyrone Power, Rock Hudson, and Anthony Perkins (who had also been a lover of Tab Hunter). The video mentions a memoir which Madison was purported to have written before his death due to emphysema in 1996.

But I can’t find any record of Guy Madison’s memoir being published or available online. And the video talks about how inspirational Madison’s career influenced future actors. When I look at Madison’s theatrical resume, it’s mostly westerns and low-budget European films. And he never won any major acting awards. So the video narration sounds like hyperbole. Is the rest of it also exaggeration?

All three of the YouTube videos I found are from different sources, yet they have nearly identical styles and talk about Madison in reverential tones. In our era of AI fakes, I’m suspicious of their authenticity.

Here’s one of those YouTube posts, if you’re interested:

[pratchettquotes]

The last ninja was upright, but only just; Hamish had run his wheelchair over his foot. Mr. Saveloy patted the taxman's arm. "Excuse me," he said. "I find I often have to intervene at this stage."

He padded over to the surviving man, who was looking around wildly. Six swords had become interlaced around his next as though he'd taken part in a rather energetic folk dance.

"Good morning," said Mr. Saveloy. "I should just point out that the Ghengiz here is, despite appearances, a remarkably honest man. He finds it hard to understand empty bravura. May I venture to suggest therefore that you refrain from phrases like 'I would rather die than betray my emperor' or 'Go ahead and do your worst' unless you really, really mean them. Should you wish for mercy, a simple hand signal will suffice. I strongly advise you not to nod."

Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

[echo-has-queries]

Sometimes you see someone being harmlessly wrong about something that doesn't matter and you just have to keep your thoughts to yourself because it's literally stupid to even care. This is the hardest thing in the universe to do.

[march32nd]

if they take a win away from george like last year I will throw up actually

[thirdity]

Hyperbole is the figure of the everyday; euphemism is the figure of the unspeakable.

Samuel R. Delany, "On the Unspeakable"

[sadder-piano]

I feel sick. Nowhere near me. I’m gonna throw up this is the worst day of my life

[lilmisbehaviour]

Testing (TW Eyestrain)

[riverflowsdownlikeafullstone]

“Is that a Gizz tattoo?!”

[gwensy]

ultimate gwen stacy is mysterio and 616 gwen stacy is deadpool and 65 gwen stacy is being rehashed in the worst way imaginable nobody look at me im going to kill myself

[eretzyisrael]