I'm reading Elizabeth M. Armstrong's Concieving Risk, Bearing Responsibility, and I just read the craziest mixed metaphor ever. Armstrong quotes extensively from interviews with physicians, and one describes the way that pregnancy "used to be" thought of, in contrast to a focus on risk avoidance now:
"I think pregnancy used to be considered, you know, like a parasitic growth. I don't mean that people really thought of it that way, but their perception was, 'This is something on autopilot. And I am just holding onto it and then I am going to return it to the library.'"
So is the fetus a parasite or an airplane or a library book? Spectacular.
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Return it to the library???
Hmmm, this is really weird!! What was she thinking? Where does the library come from? The autopilot is a bit easier to understand (you're not supposed to think/worry about it while it's happening), although it's not really related to something "parasitic." But library? I sounds like something I'd write if I were suddenly interrupted by my sons or some other people having a conversation and then I'd absentmindedly type whatever they said into my text. What's the rest of the paragraph about?
To clarify, these are not Armstrong's words--they were spoken by a physician she interviewed. But still...WTH?
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