Take literally

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Gisela no longer has all the slats on the fence.
Gudrun has a bird .

The literal or literalization of metaphorical or proverbial speech is a special form of play on words .

The comic effect arises from the ambiguity of conventionalized (“dead”) metaphors or metonymies and in particular of phraseologisms such as idioms and proverbs , whose original, “literal” meaning has been partly or wholly suppressed compared to the meanings commonly used today. In the history of German literature, this comical strategy was frequently used in foolish literature around 1500, especially in Till Eulenspiegel (1515).

literature

  • Andreas Bässler: Proverbs and proverb fluctuations: On the illustrative and narrative potential of metaphors in German-language literature around 1500 . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-017629-7 .
  • Harald Burger, Annelies Buhofer, Ambros Sialm: Handbook of Phraseology . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1982, ISBN 3-11-084939-9 .
  • Marianthi Kaplanoglu: Take it literally . In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales , Volume 14 ( Retribution - Cyprus, Supplements ). De Gruyter, Berlin and Boston 2014, pp. 996-1003, ISBN 978-3-11-040828-7 .