I've Got You Under My Skin
question
Lightning rods are stationary objects meant to draw lightning.
* kyrat
Nov 05, 2016 12:14AM
In the book a character has a nickname of "Rod". It's explained: "in his college years on the football field, a sportswriter had commented that he moved as fast as a lightning rod."
It's been bugging me since I read that line -- because a lightning rod is STATIONARY and does not move.
1.) is this an error by the author? and not caught by any editors of this major publisher? (my assumption)
2.) was it supposed to be an insult by the sportswriter by implying the guy was slow? (it doesn't seem to be, the context seems to be that the guy was fast and had a good career, but after the accident it was an ironic nickname)
3.) error on the part of the sportswriter? There's no reason to have a throw away line that make the writer seem like a quintessential 'dumb jock'.
It's been bugging me since I read that line -- because a lightning rod is STATIONARY and does not move.
1.) is this an error by the author? and not caught by any editors of this major publisher? (my assumption)
2.) was it supposed to be an insult by the sportswriter by implying the guy was slow? (it doesn't seem to be, the context seems to be that the guy was fast and had a good career, but after the accident it was an ironic nickname)
3.) error on the part of the sportswriter? There's no reason to have a throw away line that make the writer seem like a quintessential 'dumb jock'.
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Ha! I had EXACTLY the same thoughts when I read that line. Mainly, that lightning rods not only do not move fast, they don't move AT ALL. And surprise that no editor caught it. In any case, I can't imagine any sportswriter not from the 1940s using a line that cheesy, and it sounded like something made up by an elderly woman who doesn't watch football.
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