Of corn and truth

I was surprised by the end of this sentence, from user drpynchon in a comment on Ask Metafilter:

It’s not entirely crap — there are some kernels of corn too in there, but…

The autocomplete function of my brain expected the kernals to be of truth; the persistence of the cliche in action, I suppose.  The use of “corn” instead both is more literal a metaphor and evokes a much more visceral reading of the preceding “crap” than I would have had with the “truth” version.

2 thoughts on “Of corn and truth

  1. Yeah, it lends to a much more visceral reading of the post title as well. Not to sound crass, but I definitely think there’s some priming going on there.

    I also like how saying “kernal of corn” vs. “kernal of truth” further supports his argument that the movie is crap. You think he’s going to give the film at least a little credit, and he doesn’t.

  2. Ha! I hadn’t even noticed the title. “Move shit with my mind” indeed.

    I’m neither here nor there on the film; I haven’t bothered to see it, but I suspect from what I’ve read that if I did I’d dislike it.

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