The mystery of Truman Capote's final novel • Hacker News Board

Re: The mystery of Truman Capote's final novel

#11

Post by atombender » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

rrgmitchell wrote: post #4

Second sentence contains one of my pet bugbears, 'epicenter' instead of, well, 'center'. If Capote really was at the epicenter of his social circle, then the social circle itself must have been many kilometres below him. Do people think that an epicenter is somehow much more of a center than the center is?

The New Oxford American Dictionary also defines epicenter as:

    the central point of something, typically a difficult
    or unpleasant situation: the patient was at the
    epicenter of concern.

Re: The mystery of Truman Capote's final novel

#12

Post by robbedpeter » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

rrgmitchell wrote: post #4

Second sentence contains one of my pet bugbears, 'epicenter' instead of, well, 'center'. If Capote really was at the epicenter of his social circle, then the social circle itself must have been many kilometres below him. Do people think that an epicenter is somehow much more of a center than the center is?

It's a literary device called allusion. Using "epicenter" in the context of a normally non-seismic thing alludes to a seismic aspect not normally associated with that thing. It falls in line with other earthquake flavored language used for people, like "movers and shakers."

Re: The mystery of Truman Capote's final novel

#13

Post by rrgmitchell » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #7

rrgmitchell wrote: post #4

Second sentence contains one of my pet bugbears, 'epicenter' instead of, well, 'center'. If Capote really was at the epicenter of his social circle, then the social circle itself must have been many kilometres below him. Do people think that an epicenter is somehow much more of a center than the center is?

not sure what your definition of epicenter is, but the definition i know says it is the point on the earth's surface directly above the focus of the earthquake. so a human could easily be the epicenter since they are primarly found on the surface.

An (unfortunate) human could be at the epicenter of an earthquake. But not at the epicenter of a social circle unless that (unfortunate) social circle was deep below the surface of the earth.