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‘The revelations may anoint Summers president of a new fraternity of academics who crashed careers by buttering up to a known sexual predator.’

Dizzying mixed metaphors/figurative language in this sentence. Anoint, fraternity, crash, BUTTERING!? Summers was, famously, a president, so it makes sense to have that allusion here; but what is the writer doing with it? Priests, not presidents, are anointed. Promote instead of anoint?

Crashed careers is nicely alliterative, but jammed right up against soft slithery buttering it just makes a mess.

Margaret Soltan, November 22, 2025 2:00AM
Posted in: Scathing Online Schoolmarm

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