Transcript

NARRATOR (V.S. Pritchett, 1979)

‘The sea fog began to lift towards noon. It had been blowing in, thin and loose, for two days, smudging the tops of the trees up the ravine where the house stood.’

‘Smudging’ is also a familiar word. We have probably all worried about smudging ink when we are writing or leaving smudges on a polished surface. But we may not have thought about trees being smudged by fog. Though, once the idea has been introduced, you can imagine vividly what it looks like.

Again, an ordinary word has been used in an unexpected way to create a fresh and imaginative picture.