leaving the extreme and going beyond the hinge

Es­ti­mated reading time is 2 min­utes.

JUST RUSHED HERE FROM FACE­BOOK to write this quick piece to so­lidify any claim I might have to coining a new idiom: “Be­yond the hinge.” I had posted a link to an ar­ticle about Rudy Giu­liani’s on­going battle with truth, hypocrisy, and the Amer­ican Way when Michael Grego, my old school chum (Wyoming Valley West Class of ’69), chimed in. Here’s our back-and-forth pattering:

MG: I’ve been pre­dicting the first de­bate was going to com­pletely un­hinge Trump.

NU: Well, you got it right, but who thought he’d un­hinge Giu­liani and Han­nity at the same time?

NU: WAIT! What the hell am I saying? Giu­liani and Han­nity have been be­yond the hinge for decades!

NU: WAIT! “Be­yond the hinge.” Did I just coin a new idiom? Now I gotta go write a piece with that title for my blo . . .


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A thing or two about hinges

As a noun, a hinge is “a jointed or flex­ible de­vice on which a door, lid, or other swinging part turns.” As a verb, it means “to at­tach a door, gate, or cover by hinges.” Other than that, it has little to do with my new phrase. (Merriam-Webster)

To come unhinged

The rea­son­ably common idiom to come un­hinged means “to be­come men­tally un­bal­anced, dis­turbed, or con­fused,” or sim­i­larly, “to be an­gered to such a de­gree as to be or seem men­tally un­bal­anced or in­sane.” (Free­D­ic­tionary)

On the fringe

The idiom on the fringe means to be “at the ex­tremes of some­thing, typ­i­cally po­lit­ical thought.” (Free­D­ic­tionary)


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Beyond the hinge

My new phrase be­yond the hinge refers to a person who has al­ready es­tab­lished him­self as being on the fringe of an ex­treme phi­los­ophy, be­lief, ar­gu­ment, etc., who takes a Kierkegaar­dian leap-of-faith into the un­charted wa­ters of thought be­yond those extremes—usually, but not nec­es­sarily, with pre­dictably dis­as­trous (and stupid) re­sults.

At least, that’s the de­f­i­n­i­tion I have given it until I think it through or ac­cept ar­gu­ment sot re­fine­ments to it.


Hinge header

FEA­TURED IMAGE: The door with the spec­tac­ular, antique-looking metal hinge at the top of this page was crafted by Art Craft Custom Doors and Furnishing.



 

1 thought on “leaving the extreme and going beyond the hinge”

  1. Just a copy editing sug­ges­tion re­garding an ap­parent typo: Your last word on the matter (not counting the note on the photo) is ” ... that’s the de­f­i­n­i­tion I have given it until I think it through or ac­cept ar­gu­ment sot re­fine­ments to it.” I think you in­tended to say: ” ... that’s the de­f­i­n­i­tion I have given it until I think it through or ac­cept ar­gu­ments or re­fine­ment to it.” (Of course only you can say.)

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