Comments:
And in the general cause of curmudgeonly and unfriendly nitpicking, I'd point out that there's some pretty aggressive use of paraphresis in this post of Brad's as well. Particularly, it took me a couple of readings to realise that the clause containing "foam-dripping jaws" wasn't being attributed to Reynolds.
You call someone "rabid" and everything else--the foam-dripping jaws, the disease-poisoned brain, the clamping-down on everything within reach--comes with the package.
That's what *rabid* means.
I mean, if one is not allowed to make half-dead metaphors live again, what is one allowed to do?
:-)
Brad DeLong