Alexios
What else can be contorted besides a human face? Thanks
3 lug 2022 13:47
Risposte · 4
2
Common collocations are: a contorted body contorted limbs a contorted argument a contorted plot contorted reasoning contorted logic
3 luglio 2022
It is most often used to describe a human face or body, but it's limited to that. It's sometimes interesting to answer this kind of question with a Google search, and there are three things I like to search. I better not post actual links. One is Project Gutenberg, which is a huge collection of literature that was published before 1923 and is in the public domain. Another is to search Google Books. And a third is to search Google News which gives us contemporary usage, but mostly in "good written English." Here are a few selected examples. "He poured out volumes of speech to match, and contorted his body and sawed the air with his hands in a most extraordinary way."--Mark Twain "Southern Yellow Pine... is a picturesque, short, dark, contorted tree without much timber value." Similarly, "contorted mangroves [a kind of tree]," "contorted branches," "contorted stem of mesquite [a small kind of tree]" "Contorted strata" (in a geology book, about rocks); "Contorted bituminous shale of Green River formation in Northwestern Colorado." "Contorted oceanic plate caused complex quake off New Zealand's East Cape" "The contorted journeys of proprietors on Stapleton Road are captured in the red zig-zag lines that cover extensive distances." "Johnson beat Maloney in 2002, and Democrat Chris Murphy unseated Johnson in 2006. But the map contorted to serve them survives, nearly impossible to change." There are number of other references to "contorted" maps. Politicians try to draw district boundaries to favor their party in elections. In the US this is called "gerrymandering." The practice often produces districts that have contorted shapes. Laws and legal arguments can be contorted: "The Mississippi attorney general’s office argued in court papers in 2018 that the plaintiffs were seeking to 'refashion' the 1870 federal law 'into a contorted federal mandate...'"
3 luglio 2022
I like the collocation "contorted logic."
3 luglio 2022
Anything. Both physically or metaphorically. It usually has a negative connotation. Like “twisted”.
3 luglio 2022
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